


I Can’t Tell if I’m Lost or Waiting to be Found

by TwistedAmusement13



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abused Stiles Stilinski, Alpha Peter Hale, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Begging, Concubine Stiles Stilinski, Dead Sheriff Stilinski, Good Alpha Peter Hale, Good Peter Hale, Harems, Injured Stiles Stilinski, Kanima-Werewolf Jackson Whittemore, M/M, Magical Captivity, Mental Manipulation using Magic, Mention of Adrian Harris, Mention of Brunski, Mention of Julia Baccari/Jennifer Blake, Mention of Theo Raeken - Freeform, Mentioned Training for the purposes of Sexual Slavery, Mentions of Physical Punishments, Multi, Object rape, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orphan Stiles Stilinski, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Rape by Forced Insertion of an Object, Sexual Slavery, Slavery-Indentured Servitude Themes, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Has Panic Attacks, Stockholm Syndrome, Supernatural Underground, The Hale Family (Teen Wolf) Lives, Two Hale Packs, Werewolf Chris Argent, Werewolf Packs have Harems, blowjob, horror imagery, magical slavery, now with art!, slight D/s undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedAmusement13/pseuds/TwistedAmusement13
Summary: Stiles would have never imagined this is where his life would lead. He's been through so much already and in such a short amount of time. Can he really trust when a 'wolf says there's nothing to fear?----- orStiles has been thrust into the supernatural underground and is a member of a 'wolf's Harem. Will the handsome gruff-looking stranger who wins him in a poker hand really be his key to safety, salvation, and love?
Relationships: Chris Argent/Peter Hale, Chris Argent/Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 110
Kudos: 427
Collections: Secret Steter BFFs





	1. I Don’t Belong Here (I Don’t Belong Here)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mysenia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysenia/gifts).



> Title and Chapter Titles from [Stranger by Suede James + Grace Fulmer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwFdPyqWxzw)
> 
> For Mysenia's prompt: Stiles is a concubine who joins Chris’s/Peter’s harem, they’re both surprised when there’s a spark and they decide to explore it further. (Mother hen Stiles towards the other concubines would be a plus!)
> 
> Honestly, I think this got away from me and strayed from the original prompt :/ I just hope that you like it in the end. <3
> 
> ** Additional tags/warnings may appear as other chapters are posted **

* * *

Sitting at the poker table with Deucalion Blackwood for hours on end wasn’t what he had planned for his night. It was meant to be a pit stop on their way back home, because as everyone knew you couldn’t go through Nevada without stopping at Deuc’s.

The rundown casino off the main strip was not a place someone normal would ever venture into. Humans tend to give the place a wide berth, instinctually feeling the menacing nature of the place and wanting to avoid it.

Chris didn’t have that luxury though. No, his presence was a condition of his travel to Las Vegas. He was used to it over the years. He was prepared to play a few hands, lose a few thousand, and then continue on his way. It was meant to be a sign of respect, nothing more.

But when he saw the lithe figure covered in more livid bruises than pale skin he knew his plans had drastically changed.

* * *

Chris sipped at his drink, flipping his cards up just enough to see them briefly and scanned over the rest of the men at the table. He ignored Jackson shifting minutely at his side, no doubt the boy’s knees ached after being in position for so long, but there was nothing either of them could do about it right now.

It didn’t pay to be soft around Deucalion and his men. It was a weakness Chris couldn’t afford.

He kept his focus, face blank and waited as the others made their calls, one folded, throwing their cards out from them in disgust, while the rest went on with the round.

He didn’t let his eyes stray to the boy hovering nearest to Deucalion, no matter how much he wanted to get a better read on him. Deucalion would notice, no matter how blind people claimed the ‘wolf was. He saw enough as it was when he first noticed him. The boy was thin, underfed at least, had been continually beaten by the coloration of the bruises and welts adorning his mostly naked body. The only things he was wearing were a skimpy pair of gaudy silver short-shorts and a heavy-looking choke-chain collar that someone would normally put on a large dog rather than a boy.

It was disgusting, and Chris had to repress the urge to snarl on the boy’s behalf.

The act itself, or rather, the boy’s purpose for being there was more commonplace in were-society, but that didn’t mean the Alphas had to be cruel. Many packs that were large enough, prestigious enough, to have harems weren’t. Deucalion could never be accused of being kind though. He ruled the supernatural underground of Nevada, more specifically Las Vegas, with a bloody iron fist. The Alpha didn’t have a large pack by any means, but he employed a lot of mercs for hire, some former wayward hunters who decided money was money and it didn’t matter if your employer was the thing you were trained from birth to hunt and kill. It all spent the same.

Deucalion had a harem just so that he could say that he did. The majority of the young men and women he had were scattered around the game floor, selling themselves to Deucalion’s patrons in an effort to make up for what their _owner_ was losing at his own tables.

There was something broken down, resigned, in all of their eyes and he never let himself linger on them for long. The boy behind Deucalion was different though, something about him Chris spotted right away.

He was beaten, clearly, but not broken. There was still a lingering defiance sparking behind whiskey-colored eyes, something that Chris could work with.

Peter would mock him for trying to save another stray, but he would never try and stop him. And like all the rest that have come before this boy, and all the rest that might come after, Peter would support him. Always.

In some ways, his ‘wolf was even softer of heart than he was. Not that either of them would let the world see that. No, that was for them and their pack alone.

A few hands later and it was down to just Deucalion and Chris at the table. The others having bowed out as the stakes continued to rise. Chris had plenty of money, not that he wouldn’t be walking away with all of it and then some. But there was something else he wanted to be walking away with. Some _one_ else.

Now all he had to do was bide his time and wait until Deucalion was down to his last few chips.

It was no secret that Deucalion had a gambling problem, he had almost run his pack into the red more times than people could keep track. So for Deucalion to be approaching losses at the 100k mark was not surprising to Chris at all.

Well, and especially not because Chris has been expertly playing the table all evening.

He’d let a few hands go, wait for them to get overconfident and then win a round. He’s kept his betting as steady as his heartbeat and waited for the money to gradually flow over to him. Oh, and he counted cards. But that wasn’t something anyone else was aware of, except for Jackson.

Deucalion threw in his last chips, calling the bet, and before the ‘wolf even flipped his cards over Chris knew he had lost. Deucalion was pissed, sneering at Chris and then the dealer. He snapped his fingers at the boy, causing him to flinch.

“Get me a fucking drink,” he ordered him off to the bar on the other side of the room.

Chris brought his eyes up from Deucalion’s face and spared a small glance over to the boy as he placed a drink order and waited for the bartender to make it.

As expected Deucalion watched Chris watching the boy. “He’s new, just got him in the last few months. Still training him up right. The little idiot hasn’t learned his place yet.”

Chris dropped a hand to Jackson’s hair, petting through the short strands. It was a well-orchestrated act on their parts, but it was effective nonetheless. “I see.”

Chris ignored the way Jackson’s hand snuck up under the hem of his jeans and gripped his calf painfully. As much as Jackson hated being put into positions like this he really was the best suited to bring along when Chris had business trips. It was expected. And Jackson was one hell of an actor. Even if Chris knew he was going to be a shit about it the whole ride home.

“Paid too much for him as it was, and the bitch has yet to earn my dick as a reward. Instead, he seems to enjoy getting punished.” The boy had returned to Deucalion’s side and had just set the glass down on the table when Deucalion’s hand lashed out at him, his arm snaking around the boy’s back and gripping his hip hard enough that Deucalion’s fingertips were turning white with the pressure.

“Isn’t that right Stiles?” Deucalion hummed, voice coated with false sweetness, “for as much as you defy me you must love getting whipped and caned.”

With the way that Deucalion was turning the boy – _Stiles_ – towards him Chris could clearly see the raised lines and welts all over Stiles’s back. What he’s not sure about, however, is if he should be impressed or concerned about Deucalion’s level of control in inflicting the apparent punishment. It’s so easy to break and damage fragile skin on humans; they don’t heal like weres, but from what Chris could see there wasn’t a scar on the boy, no open wounds. It was all carefully done, maximum pain inflicted without lasting damage.

When Chris takes a moment to think back on all the others he’s seen from Deucalion’s harem they were remarkably unblemished. That’s not to say they weren’t any less broken, spiritually or mentally, but at least physically there wasn’t a scar on a one of them.

He didn’t want to think too hard on what that might mean. Not when he was inching closer to his goal.

Chris was still carding his fingers through Jackson’s hair, “Wouldn’t it be nice Stiles,” Deucalion purred and nodded towards Chris’s hand, “see how well the boy knows his place, it could be like that for you too.”

He didn’t have to hear Deucalion’s heartbeat to sense the lie, and if the tenseness in Stiles’s stillness was any indication, neither did he.

Deucalion didn’t get the response he was apparently hoping for either and using his grip on Stiles’s waist he pulled back and away hard enough for Stiles to get flung to the floor. The boy impacted the tiled floor hard but he stayed where he landed.

Chris stacked and fiddled with his chips, running his fingers up the stacks, the noise drawing Deucalion’s attention back to him. He had well over a hundred thousand sitting in front of him and the way Deucalion was tilting his head in assessment he realized that too. Chris sipped his drink, water, the only thing he’s let Jackson get him all night, and waited for Deucalion’s next move.

Deucalion downed his drink, never taking his eyes off of Chris, off of the stack of chips in front of Chris.

“So, what’s it going to take for me to win my money back?” Deucalion prompted as he set his empty glass down.

Chris shrugged a shoulder, “looks like you’re all out of chips Deuc.”

The ‘wolf’s eyes lit up with a bloody crimson behind his dark shaded lenses, his lips pulled back in a sneer. Chris watched, the response was as he anticipated, and he slid his eyes over to Stiles briefly. The boy was still on the floor, not having moved an inch, in the second or two that Chris allowed himself to look. When his eyes were back to Deucalion the 'wolf was looking away from him, down at Stiles. His head tilted minutely, hand clenching in a fist at his side.

Chris knew the wheels were turning, could _see it_ , now he just had to be patient.

Deucalion looked back at Chris, but then away, down to Chris’s hand in Jackson’s hair. The way Jackson was relaxed, quiet and docile.

“Seems like you found a way to tame the wild ones,” Deucalion remarked, let the comment sit in the air.

Chris hummed, a small agreement, because to confirm with words would be an outright lie. But everyone knew Jackson’s story, it was another reason why he accompanied Chris whenever they had to go into a non-allied pack’s territory. The kanima turned 'wolf was something that was myth made reality, and it was the Hale pack that was credited with bringing the fabled beast to heel.

The truth was far less impressive.

“Your methods seem to work just fine though.” Chris countered easily. And for all that Deucalion’s _methods_ were disgusting to Chris personally; they did produce the results that Deucalion seemed to prefer.

Deucalion sighed, casting another glance back at Stiles.

“How about this,” Chris prompted, baiting the proverbial hook, “one last hand. I’ll go all in and you put up the boy.” Chris raised his hand slightly to stave off Deucalion. “He seems like more trouble than he’s worth, honestly, but this way you can win your money back. And then Jackson and I will be on our way until the next time business brings us back through.”

Deucalion sat back, considering. He snapped his fingers again and Stiles was up off the floor and back to the bar. Deucalion didn’t say a word until his new drink was given and downed like his last.

“Alright,” he finally said, “why the hell not.”

And with that Chris pushed his chips all in as the dealer dealt the last round.

* * *

Chris knew it was going to be a close hand. He really didn’t need the reminder of what was at stake in the form of Jackson digging his claws into the meat of his calf. At least he was smart enough not to draw blood.

He played like it was any other of the evening, letting Deucalion flip his cards over in a flourish, confident that he had won. The flush Deucalion had was a good hand under normal circumstances, but with a three and a seven up, Chris’s full house wins every time.

When he turned his cards over, as Deucalion was reaching for the pot, it stopped the ‘wolf dead in his tracks. The dealer called out the win for Chris and Deucalion snarled. The 'wolf grabbed each of Chris’s hands, in turn, wrenching up his sleeves as if he could expose him as a cheat. Chris let himself be manhandled, to a point, and then he snarled and pulled his hands out of the alpha’s grip.

“I know you cheated somehow _Argent_ ,” Deucalion sneered.

Chris held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Now Deuc, I’ve been winning and losing just like everyone else at this table tonight. But if you want to play another hand you’re going to have to put something else up to compensate. Or, I can pay the customary tithe and we can be on our way.”

He knew he wouldn’t be leaving without paying _something_ to Deucalion, but now that he had _won_ _Stiles_ he wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. Deucalion’s anger at losing would only grow and he didn’t want to be around when the ‘wolf sought out an outlet for his frustrations.

Ennis’s hand on Deucalion’s shoulder seemed to calm the alpha somewhat. “Fine,” he spat through gritted teeth. “I want you out of my city Argent. And don’t go looking at more contracts in Vegas any time soon.”

Chris nodded from where he was stacking up the chips, neat and orderly after being pushed into the pile at the start of the round. He took back enough to cover his original ten grand buy-in and downed the rest of his drink. He pushed away from the table, Jackson on his feet and a step behind him as they walked away. When he didn’t hear another set of footsteps he paused and turned back. Stiles was still hovering behind Deucalion, eyes pinned to the floor.

Chris made a show of rolling his eyes before snapping out, “c’mere boy,” at Stiles, snapping his fingers as he saw Deucalion doing earlier.

Stiles lurched unsteadily towards them, casting looks back at Deucalion and Ennis, neither of which made a move to stop him or even really look in his direction. When Stiles was just a step behind and to the right of Jackson Chris addressed him, “you follow me now, got it?”

When Stiles didn’t respond, Chris gripped his chin and forced the terrified boy to look into his eyes. “I asked you a question. I expect a response. Do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Stiles mumbled out.

“Good enough, for now.” Chris returned curtly and then continued walking to the cashier. When he was cashed out, he tucked the neatly banded stack of hundred dollar bills in his back pocket and finally they exited the casino.

* * *

The boy was gingerly walking just slightly behind Jackson, deferring some rank to the other boy, but Chris couldn’t make any movements or even say anything until they were at least out of the city.

Deucalion had eyes and ears everywhere.

So Chris ignored his instincts to turn and help, ignored the hiss of pain when Stiles inevitably stepped on something sharp and painful. It’s not like Deucalion had the boy in anything but the skimpy silver shorts and collar. He knew he’d have to rectify that as soon as he could and have a conversation with Stiles but it just wasn’t the time and appearances needed to be maintained.

He didn’t need the feel of Jackson’s glare on the back of his head to tell him what he already knew.

They reached the SUV as quickly as possible, striding the parking lot with purpose, and as Chris opened the back door for Stiles, Jackson already claiming the other side, he turned to see the boy had stopped a few paces from the vehicle.

He was clearly agitated, heartbeat pounding away in his chest. Chris could smell the way he was terrified and the boy’s skin took on a sickly shine in the glow of the minimal street lights. Chris didn’t have time for Stiles to act out, not right now, not this close to Deucalion’s place.

He took the two large steps to the boy, grabbing him by his upper arm even as Stiles tried to flinch away; he kept his hold firm but as gentle as he possibly could trying to will the boy to come without causing a scene.

Stiles’s breath came faster, unsteady, and the scents of terror and anxiety filled the air around them.

“Get in the car,” Chris said gruffly as he put pressure on Stiles’s arm to move him along and into the back.

Stiles resisted for a half-second, and Chris dropped his voice so low he wasn’t even sure the boy would be able to catch it, but couldn’t risk being louder in case anyone else was around and said, “please.”

Chris will probably never know if the boy heard or not but Stiles's shoulders dropped from tense and ready to flee to something more resigned as he let himself be maneuvered into the back of Chris’s SUV.

With the door shut and Jackson in the back with him, Chris at least didn’t have to worry about Stiles taking off just yet. He had a sinking feeling that the kid might try and run at some point, but hopefully, he’d get to talk to him fully first before he tried anything.

They just had to make it out of Las Vegas – preferably Nevada – first.

* * *

The drive was tense, Jackson knew enough not to speak, trusted in Chris to handle things when he was able to, and wary enough of being in this state, in general, to keep his mouth shut. Stiles, Chris suspected, was too scared to speak, too used to being punished for doing so, and the SUV slowly filled with his scents of fear and anxiety.

The kid was bouncing his leg, something that would serve to annoy the shit out of Jackson soon enough, but the action didn’t seem to be something the boy could control. He was twitchy and restless, anxiety-riddled, and no doubt confused by what just transpired.

Jackson cracked the window in the back just a bit, rolling his head like someone would to try and crack their own neck or relieve some tension there. One thing about Jackson that no one outside his pack knows is how empathic he can be. Being at the mercy of someone else, forced to do their bidding, forced to be their weapon as a perverted sense of justice, it made Jackson more in tune to the feelings of others. He doesn’t show it often, tries to keep a tight lid on it so he doesn’t look weak, but it’s there all the same.

Sitting in the back with Stiles, scenting and feeling his disquiet and fear, it had to be wreaking havoc on him.

The border was still over four hundred miles away.

* * *

Nearing Beatty Chris finally couldn’t take it anymore. They weren’t safe, not yet, not until they crossed into California, but Stiles had been steadily working himself into a panic attack and Jackson looked to be ready to crawl out of his own skin when Chris last glanced at them in the rearview mirror.

Stiles needed clothes, probably some food, which would really do them all a bit of good, especially if Chris wanted to power through the rest of the drive without stopping to sleep. He found a Flying J along US-95 and pulled the SUV up next to one of the deserted pumps.

Chris pulled out the stack of hundreds, slipping five bills from the band and reaching back to hand them to Jackson.

“Get him some clothes, shoes too.”

Jackson nodded, and when the locks clicked he got out of the car and headed into the building. Chris watches him, wary of where they still are, but deemed the risk negligible for now. With Jackson in the store, he gives his full attention to Stiles.

“It wasn’t safe to talk until now. I know you must be confused and scared, but no one is going to hurt you again.”

Stiles gives him an incredulous look and pulls his feet up on the seat so he can wrap his arms around his legs. As much as he’s trying to be small, to protect his soft underbelly, Stiles’s eyes are fierce.

“I know you don’t believe me, and that’s okay. I’ll prove it to you. We all will.”

Stiles scoffs under his breath, wincing and hissing a bit and he goes to lean his head down on his knees, watching Chris like he’s too scared to let the man out of his sight.

“I’m sorry for what I had to do at the casino. I’m sorry that your first impression of me wasn’t a great one, but there was nothing I could do differently at the time.”

“I’ll never obey you.”

It’s said so quietly that Chris almost missed it, but he’s glad he didn’t.

He smiles, just a small gentle thing, and gives a little nod, “good. I wouldn’t want you to. As soon as we get to California, back to my pack, you’ll be safe. I promise.”

Stiles rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything.

Chris lets his eyes take in Stiles a little better, the collar around his neck is clearly digging into the boy’s skin and it looks red and irritated and Chris wants nothing more than to rip it off of him.

“How about we start by getting that collar off and Jackson will be back soon with something you can put on?”

As he mentions it Stiles’s hand drifts up to run along the metal of the restrictive collar. His mouth gives a little downward tilt as he seems to remember something, his hand running along to the back of his neck and out of sight from Chris.

“It’s locked,” the boy mumbles.

Chris suspected as much but he hadn’t been able to see to confirm it.

“Alright, I have bolt cutters in the trunk; will you let me use them to get it off of you?”

Stiles gives a shrug of one shoulder.

Chris takes it for all the permission he’s likely to get at this point and retrieves the bolt cutters from the trunk before opening Stiles’s door.

Close up he can see how finely Stiles is trembling and tries to touch him as carefully and minimally as possible.

“Just turn in the seat for me a bit okay?” Chris questions softly.

Stiles doesn’t reply but he does unfold himself enough to give his back to Chris so he can access the padlock keeping the choke-chain tight on Stiles’s slender neck.

It’s a matter of a minute to cut through the bar of the padlock, and then Chris is unclasping the collar from Stiles’s neck. Stiles hisses as it’s finally pulled away from his skin, giving Chris a clear view of how much damage is there. He takes Stiles’s hand before the boy can poke at the abused flesh, “let me get the first aid kit, clean it up a bit?”

Stiles gives a little nod but stays still and waits for Chris.

Chris takes care when swiping the alcohol wipes along Stiles’s irritated skin, the fingertips of his free hand under Stiles’s chin to turn his head as needed and providing enough skin-on-skin contact to be able to pull the pain from the boy.

The amount of pain that he’s feeling from him is concerning, but there’s not much more he can do right now but pull out the tendrils of pain, his veins turning black with it. Chris hears Stiles’s sigh, flicking his eyes away from his task long enough to see Stiles’s eyes flutter shut. He can’t imagine how long Stiles has been in this amount of pain.

What he’s able to take away doesn’t seem like nearly enough, and as he places a bandage over the worst parts of Stiles’s broken skin he has no reason to continue to touch him and reluctantly draws his hand away.

Stiles leans back against the seat, seeming to relax a bit for the first time since Chris has seen him.

As Chris is putting away the stuff in the trunk he catches sight of Jackson coming back with a few bags in his hands. He stays at the back of the SUV as Jackson walks up to Stiles, the two talking quietly with each other. Jackson gives Stiles the bags, explaining what’s inside and telling him to get dressed so they can eat. Jackson’s a bit gruff, but it seems to work regardless. He shuts Stiles in the car and Chris closes the trunk, giving Stiles a bit of privacy behind thick dark-tinted glass so he can get dressed.

It takes a few minutes but then there’s a light tapping on the window and Jackson is opening the door for Stiles to let him out. Chris joins them as Stiles is stepping out, Jackson giving him a once over.

“Everything fit okay?”

Stiles nods but gives a curious little look at the basic plastic flip flops adorning his feet.

Jackson shrugs, “I didn’t know your size.”

“Fair enough,” Stiles mumbles.

The clothes don’t fit Stiles right; a little big in Chris’s estimation, but Jackson did a good job for not asking what the kid’s sizes were. It doesn’t stop Chris from wanting to clean the scent of the other alpha from the boy and then wrap him in his own clothes. He doesn’t want to look too closely at that, at an instinct that has only ever presented around Peter – his mate – before.

They head over to the 24-hour diner attached to the Flying J so they can get a bite to eat before heading back on the road and the rest of the over eight-hour drive home.

* * *

Chris switched off with Jackson after they stopped for lunch just outside of Reno five hours later. Jackson, and even Stiles, sleeping in the back of the SUV as Chris drove for several hours since their stop for breakfast and clothes for Stiles.

Chris stretched out in the passenger seat, not even bothering to hold back the small smile as he hears Stiles shuffling around behind him to get more comfortable.

Aside from a bit of stilted small talk in the diner for breakfast and lunch, Stiles has been very silent. He’s less fidgety though, which Chris will count as a win and his scent has evened out some as well. He’s more wary than fearful, the anxiety a constant underlying presence though.

Chris doesn’t sleep, he can't let his guard down enough to do so, but he does try and rest some.

He listens closely to Stiles, cataloging his heartbeat and learning its rhythm. He can tell when Stiles drifts off. When its steady cadence spikes and Stiles begins to shift restlessly and whimper quietly. When it starts thudding heavily and Stiles jerks, startling himself from whatever nightmare he was in. The panting in the aftermath as Stiles comes down.

He wants to soothe him, comfort him. But he can't think of a thing to say at this moment. Stiles doesn’t trust him. He is too wary, too cautious and uncertain about his situation. As much as he wants to, Chris knows he has to be patient instead.

It’s a long four hours.

* * *

When Jackson finally pulls up to the main house Chris is relieved to be home. He knows that before he does anything else he has to tell Peter what’s happened. There was never a good time to call and tell him on the road, he didn’t really want Stiles overhearing that conversation. Not that Peter would ever refuse him, but the ‘wolf can be a bit standoffish in the beginning.

He leaves Jackson to the task of getting Stiles into the house and introducing Stiles to the rest of the occupants inside. At least from the heartbeats it’s only Lydia and Kira, so that should be easier on Stiles to deal with than the trio of Isaac, Erica, and Boyd.

Peter is waiting for him in the doorway of the smaller house they live in, preferring their privacy over staying at the main house. Not like the two buildings aren’t a few hundred feet from each other anyways, and ‘wolf hearing extends farther than that, but the illusion is nice.

He doesn’t even get to greet Peter properly before his ‘wolf’s eyes blaze red and he’s speaking, “there’s a new heartbeat at the house. Who’d you bring home this time Christopher?”

Chris wraps his arms around Peter and gives him a kiss to the temple before stepping through the open doorway and pulling Peter in after him.

“His name is Stiles. He was at Deuc’s.”

Peter’s eyes go hard; everyone knows how the self-titled _Demon Wolf_ treats his harem.

“And Deuc just let you leave with him?”

Chris chuckles darkly, “No, not in the slightest. But Ennis was there, Deuc was too much in the red at the tables and you know how much Ennis likes money, and how much he hates that Deuc spends the pack funds like he does.”

Peter nods, “I won't be surprised when Ennis snaps and challenges him finally.”

He cocks his head and looks at Peter as they make their way to the couch, “Do you think he’d actually win?”

Peter barks a sharp laugh at that, “No. There’s no way in hell. Deuc is a lot of things, but no one should ever underestimate him. To do that is to invite your own death.” Peter sighs and sits down; Chris throws an arm around him and pulls him close, burying his face in Peter’s hair and scenting him. He’s been away longer than he likes and he’s missed this.

“No, once Deuc finally tires of Ennis usurping his authority I imagine that Ennis will be missing his throat. I’m frankly surprised it’s gone on for as long as it has.”

Chris just hums, thinking back on some of the 'wolves he talked to while in Vegas. Not all of the 'wolves there were part of Deucalion’s pack, but they had alliances, however tenuous, with the Demon Wolf in the hopes of protecting themselves. There were rumors that the dissent in Deucalion’s pack ran deep, maybe Deucalion didn’t have enough on his side to afford to take out Ennis right now. Either way, he was glad that it wasn’t his problem. He got his deal done, shipments of guns will be out to the police stations in the area and he won’t have to worry about going back there for at least a few years to renew the contacts.

Peter pulls back from him so he can look Chris in the eyes. “Tell me about the boy.”

Chris shrugs, there’s not really much to tell. It’s not as if Stiles was on good speaking terms with Chris or anything.

“He was beaten up, but he doesn’t seem broken like the rest of Deuc’s, he’s quiet, but I think that’s more fear than anything.”

Peter hums, “So you don’t really know anything about him.”

“No, he hasn’t spoken much and I didn’t want him to feel like I was interrogating him when we were driving back here.”

Peter sighs deeply, “Really Christopher, must I do everything myself? Go fetch your stray and we’ll have a chat with him.”

There’s a fondness in Peter’s eyes that takes any possible sting out of his words. That fondness makes Chris pull Peter back to him, peppering sweet kisses from his jaw down to his neck, nipping at the warm flesh there. Peter groans in his ear, fisting a hand in Chris’s hair and pulling him back. There’s a protest forming on Chris’s lips but it dies there as Peter’s lips meet his own, the wolf’s devilish tongue working its way in Chris’s mouth.

_This_ , yeah, he missed the hell out of this.

He pulls Peter into his lap, the ‘wolf too busy devouring Chris’s mouth to be much help, and rolls his hips up to meet Peter’s. They break apart panting, groaning at the friction as they rock into each other, push and pull like a tide. He wants nothing more than to stand and take his mate to bed but a sharp bite to his neck has him hissing out a curse instead.

“There’ll be plenty of time to finish this later darling, but we need to settle our new guest first don’t you think?”

Chris’s head falls back to the couch, the long line of his neck too tempting even for Peter as he leans back in to bite and suck at the pounding pulse contained there. Chris rolls Peter’s hips into his own a few more times before Peter pulls away again, his eyes reluctant even if his pupils are blown with lust.

“Later.” He repeats, pressing a chaste kiss to Chris’s lips and then standing fluidly from his lap.

He rubs a hand over his face, trying to pull himself back into some semblance of order, reaching a hand in his jeans, unashamed, to adjust himself so he can stand up.

Peter’s looking intently at the closed front door when Chris makes his way over to him, lifting an eyebrow in silent question.

“I think something is wrong with your new pet.”

As soon as Peter opens his mouth Chris can hear it, the heartbeat he studied so thoroughly in the car is pounding wildly out of control. His gut clenches, he takes Peter’s hand and they walk quickly over to the main house, catching snippets of voices along the way.


	2. There may be no Danger but I Still Walk Afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the tags for this chapter so please review all tags before reading and take care of yourselves <3\. A lot of what happened or what was tagged for happened in Stiles's past. I tagged as heavily and as specifically as I could but most of what will be covered in the story is glossed over or hinted at, there will be no on-screen rape, but technically Stiles was raped as part of his 'training' to be a concubine by Brunski. Stiles has a certain mindset in this chapter because of his past so I wanted to warn you all for that. That said, I personally don't believe this is even half as dark as the tags suggest but that's just me, everyone is different and affected by things differently. Only you know your own mind, take care of yourself first and foremost. This does have a happy ending and since the moment Chris won Stiles nothing bad will happen to him again. <3 <3 Now, all that said.... have 10k of words because I don't know what constitutes a normal chapter length :)

He could do this, he had to. Jackson was leading him to a big house, something about introducing him to the others – the pack. Stiles didn’t know much about this hidden world he was forced into, but he knew one thing, harems _weren’t_ pack. It had been drilled into his head by Julia, then again by Harris and Brunski, and Deucalion never once let him forget his place.

Something was different about Chris and Jackson, he’ll give them that. But he doubted it would be _that_ different. So Stiles braced himself to be shown to the other Master, or Masters, and the rest of the concubines that made up whatever new harem he had found himself in.

He could do this, he had to.

Maybe he’d get lucky, and they would be like Julia was. She never tried to touch him, never really tried to hurt him. He obeyed because he was forced to by whatever she had initially done to him after buying him from Theo. Whatever the symbols were that she had painted on his body that day, they left him unable to function when he wasn’t near her. Wouldn’t allow him to act of his own accord unless it was to benefit her. Thoughts of running away, of taking whatever object was nearest and threatening her until she let him leave, it was all useless. The only thing that happened was he’d feel sharp pains in his head, like the worst migraine a person could imagine, and Julia always knew – somehow – would find him wherever he was in the house and just give him a look.

The first few months were the hardest. No matter how Stiles tried to rally against her it only served to cause himself pain. She’d ask, every time, if he was done yet. And when he did, when he finally gave in and let the thoughts drift away the pain would recede. When he would nod to her, that ‘yes’ he was, she would sigh and ruffle his hair and tell him not to do it again.

Like it was just a mild convenience to her and not a captive boy trying to plot her death.

Though, how much plotting could really be done when you couldn’t even _think_ about it directly?

So he stopped, stopped fighting it and just resolved himself to the fact that as long as she wanted him he’d be right where she put him. At least he didn’t have to hurt anymore. And Julia wasn’t that bad, he almost wishes he could have appreciated the time he was with her when he was because he hadn’t known how bad it _could_ get. She fed him, gave him a small room, and aside from painted symbols on his skin at odd times during every month and the bone-deep exhaustion that would follow, she left him alone.

He could read from the bookcase in the living room, even had almost the whole run of the house so long as he didn’t get in anyone’s way and he _never_ went into her bedroom or private study. Not that he could, not really, because whatever kept him tethered to her also kept him _out_ of those places. Whatever she did to him served to keep him as out of trouble as possible.

He’s still not sure what he did that made her sell him to Harris and Brunski, she wasn’t one for answering his questions, preferring him silent or making him be silent if he couldn’t do it himself. Sometimes in the darkest corners of his mind, after Theo, after Harris and Brunski, and now after Deucalion, he thinks that what Julia did was a kindness of sorts. He didn’t have a choice; his agency in the things that mattered was stripped away and replaced by her will. “Resistance is futile” had never rung truer than in the time he spent with her.

He should probably be angrier about that but he ultimately isn't.

It was easier in a way. Better than fighting back and being constantly punished and then ultimately forced to do the things he didn’t want to do.

He wondered now what it would be like here. What new hell awaited him behind the door that Jackson was opening.

He could do this, he had to.

There was no other choice that he could see.

* * *

Stiles followed Jackson inside the large house, slipping off his flip flops by the door where Jackson left his own shoes. He stayed a step or two behind the other boy, Chris having disappeared off to the other house that Stiles could see when they had pulled up. He was nervous, and the fear that had started to dissipate on the long drive was starting to well in Stiles’s chest, pulling it tight and restricting his lungs.

He was led into a spacious living room and peering over Jackson’s shoulder showed him two girls lounging inside. Stiles paused at the threshold, waiting, trembling, scared of the unknown. Jackson moved away from him, to the side so the girls had a clear view of him.

He kept his head down.

“Hey Jackson, who’s what?” A friendly voice called out, Stiles could hear shifting as the girl left her seat and approached them, but Stiles refused to look up from the floor.

“Kira,” Jackson responded, “this is Stiles.” Jackson nudged Stiles’s shoulder, startling him into looking up again at the contact.

“Stiles, this is Kira and Lydia. Kira, show him around, I’m taking a shower, Chris insisted on driving the whole way back.”

With that Jackson turned and left the room, Stiles watched him go down a hallway until he was out of sight and a door was shutting. The girl in front of him was shorter, petite, with long straight dark hair and a friendly smile plastered on her face. She was _bubbly_ and Stiles wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.

“Hey, hi, I’m Kira, like Jackson said. Just ignore him; he’s cranky from the long drive. Come in, come in,” she gestured him further into the room and Stiles took a few hesitant steps behind her.

“So you’re Stiles. That’s a unique name. How’d you end up with it?”

Stiles just stared at her blankly, watching as the smile was dropping from her face.

“It’s okay; you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just, um, oh! Do you want something to drink? Or some food? Or maybe you want to lie down? I know it’s a long drive, you must be exhausted. I can show you to a room where you can sleep. Or you can take a shower, like Jackson, if you want.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever met someone who can ramble as much as him. Or, as much as he used to. Before.

“It’s a nickname,” he mumbles out finally, a little overwhelmed by all her questions and not sure what is acceptable for him to say.

“What’s a Stiles?” A new voice asks, bored.

It was the other girl, Stiles saw, sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair like it was her own personal throne. It may well have been. There was a porcelain perfection about her, still and pressed, makeup flawless and radiant red curls hung artfully around her face and back. She barely looked like she was breathing. Stiles watched her, uneasy, she was maybe only a year or so older than him but there was something about her that set Stiles on edge the moment he really looked at her.

It didn’t get better when she turned her head and fixed him with a hollow dead-eyed stare.

Her voice was quietly musical when she spoke again, lilting in odd places, “I’m sorry about your father.”

Stiles tensed, frozen in place even as his heartbeat lurched and stuttered.

“I heard his name in the whispers when he died,” she says, tapping the side of her head with a French-manicured fingertip. “In here,” as if she needed to elaborate, Stiles can scarcely breathe.

“I used to hear the names, all of them, for hundreds of miles back then.”

Stiles’s vision is getting hazy, black spots dancing around the edges. Even the girl he was just talking to, Kira, seems rooted in place.

“I screamed for him when he died.”

Stiles blinks, trying to clear his vision but it doesn’t help, there’s an image overlaid over the perfect doll in front of him, hazy and gray but solidifying before his eyes. Grotesque waxy skin, gray hair lying greasy and limp against her scalp, eyes replaced with endless pools of blackness, and lips cracked pulling back in a soundless snarl over jagged and rotting teeth. He can't see past it, the image overtaking the girl completely and no matter how rapidly he blinks the image doesn’t clear.

She hums, closing her eyes and swaying for a moment before fixing him with her stare again – void and endless, a blank abyss. “Noah Stilinski.”

She opens her mouth and the gasp to his side has him finally pulling his eyes away, Kira pales and snaps out “Lydia” so sharply that Stiles flinches from the sound.

When Stiles looks back the monstrous image falls away from his vision and the doll blinks, her red-painted mouth closing gently, and when she reopens her eyes there’s a warmth and awareness that was so clearly lacking before. The girl – Lydia – looks from Kira to Stiles, sits up a bit before standing and walking over to them, hand stretched out in front of her.

“I’m Lydia Martin, pleased to meet you.”

Stiles gapes, he flinches back from her, stumbling back on his feet trying to get away. He doesn’t know what the fuck just happened but he’s reevaluating his thoughts that ‘wolves are the scariest thing he’s ever seen before. Clearly this girl is something _other_ and the fact that he doesn’t know what she is, or what she’s capable of, is enough for Stiles to break out in a cold sweat. His heart hammering away in the confines of his ribcage like it’s trying to break free and he still hasn’t been able to regulate his breathing since she looked over at him.

He trips over his own feet in his pitiful attempt at escape – _because of course he does_ – and lands hard on his ass, it doesn’t stop him from trying to crab-walk away, well at least until he hits the wall behind him. There’s a hand coming toward him, to help or hurt he doesn’t know, but it’s Kira’s, not Lydia’s, though that does nothing to quell his panic.

Stiles can't even look up at the faces of the two girls before him, terrified of what he’s going to see; can't focus on the words that they’re trying to say, the concerned sounding calls of his name, as he draws his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them, trying to be as small as possible.

It never stopped anyone before. But it’s all he can do to try and protect his soft squishy bits, tucking his head down to his knees, panting and wheezing into the enclosed space.

Nothing is working, he can't get his brain to count his breaths, can't focus enough on the outside world to get out of his head. He knows he’s having a panic attack, has become well acquainted with them since his dad died, since he met Theo, since Theo _sold_ him, but knowing what is happening and _stopping it_ are two very different things. He just wishes he would pass out already.

* * *

Chris wasn’t completely prepared for the sight that greeted him as he and Peter made their way inside the big house. He heard enough on their short sprint over but it still caused his heart to stutter and served to freeze him into place in the threshold of the living room. Stiles was curled up into himself, legs drawn tight to his body and he was shaking and wheezing for air.

The girls were similarly frozen in place, a few steps in front of Stiles, trying to call his name, to get the boy to respond but they obviously weren’t having any luck. Kira looked wracked with concern while Lydia was calculating, assessing the situation, but seeming unable to find a way through.

The boy’s erratic heartbeat was pounding like a drum in Chris’s ears, and after a moment it was all he could hear.

He didn’t know what to do, it was obvious that Stiles was having some sort of anxiety or panic attack, but Chris couldn’t remember a thing to do that would make it better for the boy. He wasn’t expecting Peter to lurch out from behind him, for the ‘wolf to drop to his knees in front of the boy, speaking soothing words in an effort to calm him down.

In a wave the rest of the sounds came crashing back to Chris, Peter’s quiet but steady commands intent on helping Stiles to regulate his breathing, the shower clicking off down the hall, the rasp of fabric as Lydia clenched and unclenched her hands into fists at her sides, Kira’s small whispered reassurances to Stiles that ‘everything was going to be okay’ that ‘no one was going to hurt him’.

When Peter reached out to touch Stiles though a heat swept through the room followed immediately by Stiles’s terrified bark of “don’t touch me!”

The girls had stumbled a few more steps back, a sheen of sweat on their skin, and Chris could see Peter’s hand as he had snatched it away from Stiles’s arm, blistering and red, _burned_. He didn’t have time to question it, Peter renewing his efforts to be gentle, to try and talk the boy down, even as he now mumbled over and over again that he was sorry.

Jackson sprinted into the room, shirt clinging to his damp skin, “what the hell is happening?” as he made his way over to Lydia and put his arm around her protectively.

Chris quieted him with a small glare and Jackson wisely shut up, surveying the room instead. It didn’t take long for him to see what was going on.

“There you go sweetheart, breathe in and hold it, good. Very good. Now breathe out slowly. You’re doing so well. No one here is going to hurt you.” Peter’s words, his whole focus, was only on the trembling and crying boy in front of him.

Chris can admit, maybe only to himself, that he’s never seen Peter so taken with someone else before, he wonders if it’s anything like what he felt himself when he first saw Stiles.

It takes a while but Stiles does eventually calm down enough, Peter talking him through it the whole way. Lydia and Jackson leave to give them some space, even if Kira refused. She’s always had such a kind heart, and Chris knows that all she wants to do is help. Deep down Chris knows it’s her way of atoning for everything she feels guilty of doing in her past, no matter how much they have told her that she wasn’t in control. She’s better, she’s _healing_ , but it’s a long road, one everyone here is all too familiar with.

Looking at the boy still curled up on the floor Chris knows it will be a long road for him too. But Chris will do everything in his power to make sure that he never has to walk it alone. That he’ll have as much support as he needs. He doesn’t even have to glance at Peter to know the ‘wolf feels the same.

* * *

Stiles fucked up, he knows he did but he couldn’t stop it. All he could do now was to try and apologize and take whatever punishment the Masters felt he deserved. He hoped he could take it. It’s not like he was healed up from the last time Deucalion decided to teach him a lesson two days ago.

That in and of itself is a thought that he doesn't want to think too much on. He hadn’t been with Deucalion for long but he was starting to learn the unwritten rules, starting to find his footing, seeing how much he could press, how much he could resist.

Here, here he has no idea what is expected of him. And though probably stupid, he wasn’t lying when he told Chris in the car that he’d never obey him. It was the same thing he told Deucalion after all, although Deucalion took that as a personal challenge to _make_ Stiles obey. He had been fighting back – as much as he could – but he knew his resistance would only last so long. He was just trying to find a way out, a way to escape, and he’s not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse that Chris _won_ him.

Maybe, maybe he could try to seduce Chris. The mere thought turned Stiles’s stomach when he first met Deucalion, even if that was what Harris and Brunski were _training_ him for, even if that’s what Deucalion explicitly said he’d be _used_ for. But Chris hadn’t seemed like that, and maybe, just maybe he could appease him, get out of being beaten or whipped or caned or worse.

But he knows he fucked up; he felt _something_ when the man in front him tried to reach out, when his hand brushed the skin of his arm. He doesn't know what it was, only that after he felt exhausted. Even now, coming down from his panic he feels drained to the bones. He wishes he could just curl up in bed and sleep for ages.

In the deepest part of his heart, he wishes his dad was still alive and that everything that’s happened has all been a vivid nightmare. He’s more terrified than he can remember being in a long time.

As he pulls his head up he realizes that the girl – Lydia – is gone, a man he’s never seen before on his knees in front of him and Chris and Kira off to the side of the room murmuring quietly, giving them space. Stiles doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to beg for forgiveness because he’s not entirely sure what is going on.

His skin feels cracked and raw, but not from Deucalion’s last beating, no, from something older. He can feel it in the places where Julia painted his body in blood-red symbols. He feels as if something inside of him has cracked open, a lock binding him having shattered.

The images – auras – he’s not sure what to call them, have been happening off and on for the last few weeks. He knew that Deucalion was a monster, but to see the slobbering feral beast overlaid on his skin was hideous. He understood at that moment why he was called the _Demon Wolf_ because to Stiles’s eyes he looked every inch of one.

It didn’t last long, not as long as whatever he saw lurking under Lydia’s skin, but it was enough to freak him out, make him miss whatever Deucalion had said and earned him the cane. Since then he’d been wary to even look at Deucalion directly, scared of seeing that again.

He’d seen similar flashes over Ennis, the fact that it was a wolf becoming clearer, rather than the demon beast of Deucalion. It was a small sampling, but Stiles figured whatever it was must be tied to the fact that the two men were werewolves. And Stiles thought seeing them shift forms, their faces rearranging, and the claws, fangs and glowing eyes were bad enough.

He barely slept after seeing Deucalion for the first time.

The man before him was different though. He could see the weak image, almost as if was feeling as exhausted as he was, of a sleek and strong wolf. Nothing distorted or monstrous about him, just a curiosity in his ruby-red eyes, his fur looking well cared for and Stiles had half a thought to wonder if it would be soft if he could touch it. And when he blinked, the image was gone.

He shook, from exhaustion and the left-over adrenaline from his panic attack coursing through his veins. He was cold, down to his bones, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He looked over at Chris but the man wasn’t moving from where he was talking quietly with Kira. He thought of all people it would be him in front of Stiles, him trying to calm him down, but instead, it was this stranger.

He wondered if maybe it wasn’t Chris in charge after all, if maybe it was this man instead.

“Sweetheart?” The ‘wolf before him questioned, the concern clear in his deep blue eyes.

Stiles didn’t know what response was expected so he just nodded a bit, keeping his eyes downcast.

“You must be Stiles,” he said, and when Stiles nodded again the ‘wolf said, “You can call me Peter.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles rasps, he doesn’t know if it will save him in the end but he has to try. He’s too weak right now to fight back and he feels so close to shattering.

“Shh, shh, none of that now sweet boy,” Peter says gently, and for a moment Stiles almost believes him.

Peter goes to reach out to him though and Stiles flinches back, fear burning in his chest and causing his breath to hitch.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Peter claims patiently, “how about we get up and go over to the other house to talk for a bit, hmm? It’ll be quieter over there.”

Stiles doesn’t even try to refuse, his whole body aches from the last time he refused Deucalion and all he wants is a little bit of rest in between. He just needs to be a little bit stronger and then he can fight back again.

He gets his feet under him, using the wall as support, even though Peter does try and reach out to help him, he shies away from the ‘wolf. He waits there, willing – for now – to follow Peter’s lead.

Peter gives direction to Chris to bring Stiles’s stuff over to the house, something about the trio coming back soon and wanting a place for the three of them to talk before introducing Stiles to the rest of the pack. Chris looks over at Stiles like he wants to follow them immediately, but, like Stiles suspected earlier, he defers to Peter instead.

It’s clear to Stiles now that Peter is the Master he’ll have to serve.

At least Chris he had known for a handful of hours, the man was gruff but gentle, but Peter, Peter he didn’t know at all. And while it _looked_ like he cared, Stiles couldn’t trust it for a second. Julia looked like she cared about him sometimes too, but he was still essentially her bound slave for more than a year, and when she was done with Stiles she sold him off to Harris and Brunski without a second thought.

Stiles follows Peter silently down a winding path to a smaller house set back from the main house he was just in. He doesn’t try to speak again and neither does Peter, just leading him through the front door and gesturing to the couch in the cozy-looking living room.

It’s homey in a way he wasn’t expected, but that does nothing to ease his lingering fear. He has a few precious moments to decide what he’s going to do as Peter goes to get something from the kitchen. He thinks back to his thoughts of seduction, he’s not sure if he can be convincing, not sure if he can swallow down the lump in his throat and make himself actually do this.

He tries to imagine it like his training. When he did it himself it always went much easier; Harris wouldn’t force him – didn’t like touching him at all really – and it was enough that Harris would reign in Brunski as well, no matter how much the creepy fucking asshole loved it when Stiles would fight and he’d get a chance to _make_ him do what he wanted.

For all that he was instructed in what his _duties_ would be as a concubine, he’s never had any real experiences. Harris was strict in that way, he prided himself on the _purity_ of his _merchandise_. It was only ever toys that came near Stiles, keeping him as virginal as possible, while teaching him how to please his future Master.

Brunski, though, liked things more hands-on. He would grab whatever toy Stiles was supposed to be working with and _show_ Stiles the _right_ way he should be gagging on a dildo or being fucked by one. He would force Stiles with the toy until _he_ was satisfied. Stiles _hated_ his sessions with Brunski, would rather deal with Harris’s exacting standards that Stiles could never meet solely because Harris never laid a finger on Stiles if he could help it.

He keeps his _training_ in mind, mapping out a scenario, detaching himself from what he’s about to do as much as he possibly can. Compartmentalizing was not a skill he was born with, but it’s one that he’s learned over the years, and for the most part he can do it well enough to protect the most vulnerable parts of himself.

Stiles won't allow himself to be broken down and lost completely.

Peter pauses by the couch, Stiles still standing in front of it, yet to take a seat. Stiles drops to his knees with a grace he doesn’t usually possess – one of Harris’ first lessons was in doing this properly, his knees had been bruised for weeks – and reaches out to Peter’s belt buckle.

His throat is dry and he has to swallow to try and get some moisture there.

His hands are shaking but he doesn’t let it stop him.

He’s determined.

He can do this.

He has too.

He’s not strong enough to take another beating.

It’ll be just like the toys he’s used before.

His breath hitches and he ignores the dampness on his cheek.

He bites down on his tongue, the slight pain refocusing him.

Peter is speaking but he ignores the words, lets them wash over him, the blood rushing in his ears is the only thing he hears.

He gets his hands on the clasp, undoing it quickly, not letting himself think about what comes next.

He’s slipping the button through the hole, the zipper sliding down, when Peter moves out of his reach.

There are hands gripping his wrists, hard, holding him in place.

“Stiles!” Peter calls sharply, all of the sounds flooding back at once.

His heart is racing, and he’s breaking out in a cold sweat. The ‘wolf is angry, that much is crystal clear. Stiles has managed to fuck up twice now and he doesn’t know what to do to make it better. He doesn’t know how to apologize, how to smooth things over. If he had done this with Deucalion – and even the _thought_ of that is enough to make his stomach roll – Deucalion never would have stopped him, it would just be proof that what he was doing was finally working and Stiles was obeying like Deucalion wanted.

“Fuck,” he pants out, nauseous.

He’s being pulled up to his feet by the firm grip on his wrists, and then tugged down a short hallway he didn’t even notice before and herded into a bathroom. Stiles is falling to his knees again, the impact on the tiled floor hard enough to bruise, as he retches into the toilet. Bile burning his throat on the way up.

When it stops and he can breathe again, his stomach finally done with its protests, he leans back on his heels. He’s gross, tears and snot on his face, his mouth tasting like death. He looks up to the sink but catches sight of Chris standing by the doorway out of the corner of his eye. He sighs, he hates anyone seeing him like this, but it’s not as if he can expect privacy.

Chris moves towards the sink before Stiles can even get up from the floor, wetting a washcloth and then handing it over to him. A glass is filled as Stiles wipes off his face, and then handed over to him as well, Chris taking back the cloth to rinse out before tossing it into a hamper in the corner.

Stiles uses the water to rinse his mouth out, spitting everything in the toilet and then flushing it down when he’s done. Chris offers his hand out to Stiles for assistance and Stiles is too tired to refuse at this point, taking the help to stand. His legs are shaking; worse now than after his panic attack.

He follows Chris silently, back into the living room. Peter is seated in an armchair, adjacent to the couch that Chris directs him to. They both sit down and Stiles can’t help it as he draws his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them.

He can't stop shaking.

“Do you know what fear smells like to a ‘wolf, Stiles?” Peter asks.

He doesn’t, but he knows that Deucalion liked it when he was terrified. He gives a small shake of his head.

“It smells sour, kind of similar to the bile you just threw up,” Peter says conversationally.

Stiles winces and drops his head down to his knees.

“I know you don’t know us. I know you’re scared. I know you only tried what you did _because_ you’re scared.”

“Peter,” Chris interjects.

It sounds like a warning. Stiles pulls his head up a bit, peering at Peter.

Peter continues on like Chris never spoke, “But I want to make one thing perfectly clear sweetheart, if you are ever on your knees for me again it won't be because you think you _have_ to be. It won't be because you think it’ll save you from some _punishment_. It’ll be because it’s something we _both_ want, and not a second before.”

Stiles trembles at the implications, his heart pounding in his chest, and he feels like he can scarcely breathe.

“Goddammit Peter!” Chris explodes from next to Stiles.

Stiles flinches hard but doesn’t look over at Chris, he can't, keeping his eyes trained on Peter instead.

“What?” Peter questions, all false innocence.

“That’s really what you’re going with? Are you fucking insane?! I told you where I found him and that’s what you’re going to say to him after what just happened? I can't fucking believe you right now Peter.” Chris fumes.

“Yes, _Christopher_ , it is. I wanted to make it clear to Stiles that he will _never_ be forced to do what he just attempted to do.”

Peter is deadly serious, Stiles can tell at least that much, though he’s sure he’s missing something.

Some of the seriousness fades a bit and then Peter shrugs, and Stiles is just so confused; Chris sighing in response, like Peter is a huge inconvenience to him, also muddies the waters further.

“Stiles,” Peter says, making Stiles refocus on him again, “I mean it though, and perhaps Christopher is right and I was a bit vulgar, but I only wanted you to understand that nothing like that will happen without your, hopefully enthusiastic, _consent_. I don’t particularly enjoy the stench of fear when getting a blow job.”

Chris curses again and Peter sighs and runs a hand over his face, “I know that Deucalion would have taken you by force without a second thought, no matter how terrified you were or how much you didn’t want it. We, Christopher and I, we aren’t like that.”

Peter pauses, resting his elbows on his knees. “We don’t know what you’ve been through, but you are safe here. There’ll be no punishments. You won't be forced to do a thing. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. Or you can leave. You aren’t a prisoner.”

Stiles doesn’t know what the catch is, sure that there is one. He just can't see it, can't suss out their true motives. He doesn’t believe Peter, no matter how sincere he seems.

Peter nods even though Stiles doesn’t respond. “It’s been a long day I’m sure, and I know Chris drove straight through, so how about a quick bite to eat, something simple for your stomach, then a shower and bed. Does that sound okay for now?”

“Sure,” Stiles croaks out finally for a lack of anything else to say.

Chris heads to the kitchen; it’s a little awkward sitting with Peter in silence, waiting for Chris to return. But Chris does come back, a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a Gatorade for Stiles that he sets on the coffee table. Stiles has to unfold himself so he can reach the bowl, eating slowly so he doesn’t get sick again. Chris comes back a second time with plates for Peter and himself, some kind of beef dish, and Peter turns on the TV while they all eat quietly.

It’s weirdly domestic.

Stiles isn't quite sure what to do with that realization. So he tucks it away into a box in his mind and finishes his soup and drink.

With the empty bowl set back on the coffee table, Chris puts down his plate as well. He has Stiles follow him back down the hallway and to another room off of it. A guest room he sees as Chris opens the door, the bags that Jackson had bought sitting on the crisply made bed.

“There’s a bathroom attached to this room,” Chris says, pointing at a door along the wall, “Towels are fresh and there’s soaps and shampoos in the shower. Use whatever you like and take as long as you want, there’s plenty of hot water.”

Stiles nods and inches his way past Chris into the room.

“I’m not sure what all Jackson bought, I haven't checked the bags, but I’ll bring you over a pair of sleep pants and shirt, set them on the bed for you.”

“Okay.”

“We can go tomorrow, if you want, and get you some things. Better clothes, your own toiletries. Whatever you need,” Chris offers softly.

“Sure,” Stiles says shrugging, he doesn’t really care either way. Everything he’s done since he got here has been wrong in some way. Maybe this once it’s easier just to agree, even if he doesn’t understand _why_ they are doing what they are doing.

Chris leaves him and Stiles looks briefly through the bags on the bed, he knows Jackson told him what was inside but he didn’t really get a chance to look, pulling on the first things he grabbed when he was left to change in the SUV. There are a few shirts, more than a couple of packs of underwear – boxers and boxer briefs in two different sizes each – two hoodies, a regular sweatshirt, and a couple of pairs of drawstring cotton pants.

Chris knocks on the door’s frame, returning with the shirt and pants like he said he would. Stiles takes them from him and Chris shuts the door between them, giving Stiles his privacy. The clothes in his hands are soft and worn. He sets them down on the bed, finding a package of boxers from the bags in a size that’ll fit and one of the hoodies, and putting the rest back in the bags and setting them neatly on the floor in the closet.

He doesn’t waste time stripping out of his clothes and the hideous silver short-shorts that Deucalion made him wear whenever he was on the casino floor. Cranking the shower on he waits for the water to warm up, just shy of scalding, before stepping in.

It’s been so long since he’s had a hot shower all to himself.

He stands there for long minutes, one hand braced against the tiles as the water beats along the nape of his neck and shoulders.

Stiles tries to empty his mind, but he’s overwhelmed with everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. The tears burning his eyes just mix with the water in the shower.

When he’s able to shake himself out of it he starts to soap himself up, gingerly washing his back where the worst of his injuries are, the welts still hot to the touch. Shampooing and even conditioning his hair, and then standing under the blissfully hot spray until only water remains on his body, the rest swirling down the drain.

He dries off and then gets dressed, his mind wants to run rampant, thoughts ping-ponging and vying for his attention but he’s exhausted to the bone. It’s only a scant few minutes from the time his head hits the soft pillow to when he’s dropping off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Chris is drained when he heads to his and Peter’s bedroom. The shower in Stiles’s room finally shutting off and the boy drifting off to sleep not long after.

He runs a tired hand down his face as he sees Peter lounging on his side of the bed, waiting, because the ‘wolf knows that they need to have a conversation about their new guest.

He changes silently, trying to prolong the inevitable. He doesn’t want to do this right now even if he knows they have to.

It’s the responsible thing to do, even if he hates being responsible sometimes.

When he sits on his side of the bed, back to the headboard all he can do is sigh.

They both start speaking at the same time, talking over each other.

“I feel protective of him, Peter, and now you’ve probably scared him.”

“I didn’t mean to be so blunt with him, considering what he’s most likely been through.”

They both take a breath and Peter gestures to Chris to speak first.

Chris puts his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. “You didn’t see him at Deuc’s, he’s covered in welts and bruises, and he’s _terrified_. You know what Deucalion is like, how he treats his people. If it wasn’t for the fact that I couldn’t smell Deuc on him _like that_ I would have assumed that Deuc was taking him every chance he could.”

“Small miracles,” Peter says quietly.

“So, I feel protective of him, and I know I didn’t see whatever happened, but you scared the shit out of him when you said that. What’s he going to think? We’re supposed to be helping him.” Chris reprimands lightly.

“That’s the thing though, I _was_ helping him. Deucalion has very strict rules, no doubt rules that Stiles was just beginning to learn. And now he’s here, and he has no clue what’s going on, where he fits, what’s expected of him. I admit, my delivery was lacking tact, but he needed to hear it. And he’ll need to continue to hear things like that until he can start to believe it, start to trust us.”

Chris snorts, “Lacking tact, that’s one way to spin it.”

Peter just smiles slightly and bumps Chris’s shoulder with his own.

Peter sobers though and Chris waits patiently for whatever he’s about to say.

“He dropped to his knees like it was something he was born to do. He was trained to do it, I realize that, but the point stands. He’s used to rules and punishments and bending himself without breaking completely. He was willing to bend, tonight, for me, to escape whatever he thought was going to happen. It means we have to be clear with him. We have to spell it all out and leave no room for doubt, because all he’s going to be doing is waiting for that other shoe to drop.”

Peter looks away, sadness in his blue eyes and it hurt Chris to see him like this. Getting so upset.

“I’m protective of him too. Something,” he pauses and takes a breath, measuring his words, “something about him just draws me in and I can't really explain it.”

Chris cuts in, “I felt it too.”

Peter’s head snaps up at that, searching Chris’s eyes. There’s a flash of something in Peter’s eyes but Chris doesn’t understand what it could mean.

“I think we’ll have to discuss that later, once we find out what Stiles wants to do.”

Chris nods in reply.

Peter rubs his hand, the same one that was burned earlier. It’s healed now, of course, but Peter worries at it like it’s some great mystery.

“You’ll have to find out more about him, I’m assuming that when you told me before that he was quiet that he also wasn’t sharing his past with you.”

“He wasn’t, no,” Chris confirms.

“I think he might have some magic, I don’t know that he’s fully aware of it though. I want to say that he wouldn’t harm us on purpose, but he’s so scared, he might lash out without meaning to. We’ll need to know what that could mean.”

“Do you want me to take him to Deaton?”

Peter growls, “Gods I wish there was another Druid around here besides him.”

Chris chuckles, “Everyone but you gets along with him, Peter.”

“He’s just such a pretentious asshole, always going on about balance, and never giving a straight fucking answer. It’s annoying.”

Chris rubs his hand on Peter’s knee, trying to soothe him.

“But yeah, take him to Deaton, maybe you’ll have better luck getting an answer out of him then I would. And if not I’ll call Amara and we can take a drive to San Francisco this weekend.

“Okay, I’ll take him.”

Peter leans in and kisses Chris gently; it’s been a long fucking day so Chris doesn’t take things further, trading lazy kisses for a bit before lying down and relaxing. He pulls Peter in close to his chest and whispers that he loves him before they both fall off to sleep.

* * *

The next few days are not very eventful, Chris and Jackson take Stiles to see Deaton, and while the boys are looking at the puppies and kittens that will be available for adoption soon Chris gets a chance to talk to Deaton about the possibility of Stiles having magic.

At least the man is straightforward with Chris. He admits that he can sense magic from Stiles, a spark of sorts, the _potential_ for magic as Deaton half-explains but he chalks up what happened with Stiles and Peter during Stiles’s panic attack as a fluke. Claims that Stiles shouldn’t be able to do anything like that and especially not without some sort of training.

Peter is not very impressed to hear that and resolves to consult the witch he knows – Amara – later in the week.

For the most part Stiles is quiet. The first few days he didn’t really do anything without first being prompted and if left to his own devices would sit and stare at the wall all day. He was amenable enough at the store picking out a few articles of clothing and some bathroom necessities but it was generally the cheapest option available or off of the clearance rack. Chris decided not to push him too much outside of what he was comfortable with for now since Stiles is still so skittish.

He did insist that Stiles get a cell phone – picking out the model that the rest of the pack had, knowing the younger members liked all the features – even if it made Stiles jittery for the rest of the time at the store. He wanted him to have access to the world and to be able to call anyone if needed. Chris made sure to program everyone’s contact information in it and set up the WiFi access for the packhouse and their house.

The only one of the pack that he’ll talk to, aside from Chris or Peter when they speak directly to him, is Jackson. He keeps his distance from Lydia entirely and Kira seems to overwhelm him easily when she gets going and starts asking him a ton of questions. Even if it’s just inane things like what his favorite movies or TV shows are, he clams up quickly and starts reeking of anxiety. Chris knows Kira doesn’t mean to do it and that she feels terrible when it happens but she’s yet to be able to reign in her enthusiasm.

Jackson’s taken to him though and when Stiles is at the packhouse he looks out for him and is a good buffer between Stiles and the rest of the pack. For some reason Stiles doesn’t take offense to Jackson’s sarcastic and borderline rude behavior, content to go along with whatever he says or just following his lead. If Chris didn’t know better, and he does, it would seem like Jackson was bullying him or being mean in the way that he talks to Stiles. But at least around Jackson Stiles is less fearful, less anxious.

Stiles avoiding Lydia has made it hard on Jackson though, that’s easy enough for Chris to see, but Jackson doesn’t make a fuss about it and Lydia has been gracious enough to keep her distance in return, knowing that something about her freaks Stiles out so much. Aside from Kira’s explanation of what happened when they came home that day, about Lydia doing her ‘banshee thing’, as she calls it, Stiles hasn’t said what about the girl upsets him, and Lydia doesn’t really remember what she might have said to him when she was in her trance-like state. Kira, unfortunately, was also too worried about Stiles freaking out to really remember what all was said.

Chris was able to introduce Stiles to the trio, the ‘wolves having been at the house when they had gotten back from Deaton’s. It didn’t go poorly, but it’s not like Stiles opened up to any of them either. He’s still been staying at Chris’s and Peter’s house in the guest room there for now.

The only notable change all week came courtesy of Jackson. Having listened to Stiles’s stomach growling at odd times between normal meals he finally forced Stiles into the kitchen at the packhouse and showed him where everything was. He made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that if Stiles was hungry he was to eat. Jackson told him that whatever was needed, food-wise, should be added to the grocery list on the fridge and someone would make sure it was picked up on the next run to the store.

Jackson watched him like a hawk, sitting on a stool at the counter until Stiles made a sandwich. He didn’t even say a thing when Stiles fixed Jackson a sandwich first before his own, Stiles going so far as to wait until Jackson started eating before he took his own bite.

It was an odd thing for Chris to watch from his chair in the living room, primed to interject if he thought that Jackson was pushing too hard, too fast. But Jackson just ate his sandwich and sat out there until Stiles finished his own as well and that was that. They rejoined the rest of the pack in the living room to watch whatever was playing on TV before the whole thing went down and nothing else was said.

After that Stiles found a sort of sanctuary in the kitchen. That same day he fixed a huge dinner for everyone, and while he was the last to get a plate, and the last to start eating, it was the first thing he did of his own accord. Chris was quietly pleased, he didn’t even care about the self-satisfied smirk Jackson kept throwing his way the whole time Stiles was cooking.

It became a routine then, when Stiles was awake he was in the packhouse, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even if he seemed to enjoy it Chris was worried about him feeling obligated to do it as a form of repayment, he made sure that everyone thanked him for cooking, expressing that he didn’t have to but that it was appreciated.

He and Peter even sat down with Stiles to tell him that he wasn’t expected to cook, that it would be okay if he didn’t want to, or if he wanted to do something else. They didn’t get very far, Stiles just shrugging and saying that he liked to and it wasn’t a big deal. They let it slide for a lack of a better thing to do or say about it, it wasn’t hurting him and they didn’t want to stop him from doing the only thing he’d shown any interest in doing so far.

It was calm. The only thing left for Chris to do was to be patient and wait until Stiles trusted them enough to open up. He wouldn’t pry, no matter how much he wanted answers. Stiles was entitled to his privacy, and as long as he was under their roof, Chris knew that he was safe.

* * *

He had been told often enough since he’s been here that he didn’t need to _do_ anything, that nothing was expected of him, but Stiles didn’t know how _not_ to do something. He wasn’t good at being idle and there’s only so long he can stare at nothing before he loses his damn mind. 

The thing was, he wasn’t really sure why he was still here. At first it was because it was a warm bed and a hot meal and no pain to endure. But now, now he doesn’t know why he stuck around. They didn’t _need_ him. Peter and Chris didn’t require his _services_ , so what was he supposed to do?

So he cooked. It was easy enough, and he found he enjoyed it more than he remembered. It kept him busy, planning meals and researching new recipes to try. The phone Chris made him get is great for that, scouring the internet for new dishes to make. The harem – or pack, as Chris and Peter liked to remind him – seemed to enjoy his cooking, so overall it Stiles thought it was a good idea.

He got into a routine, and learned everyone else’s routines in turn. He was always up before anyone else anyways, he hadn’t had much luck sleeping through the night, awaking too many times from one nightmare or another, so it was easy to just get started on a hearty breakfast when the sun was just starting to come up over the horizon.

Kira, he learned quickly, also seemed to be an early riser, even if she didn’t leave the house until later in the morning. He hadn’t had much time to talk to any of them, trying to keep out of the way, to remain quiet and unobtrusive. Jackson, though, was immune to this and would drag him into a conversation whether he wanted to talk or not.

It wasn’t a surprise as he was getting things ready to make a batch of pancakes that Kira joined him in the kitchen, pouring herself a large cup of coffee that only just finished brewing. It was the first thing he did, after all, setting the coffee maker up.

He must have been off-kilter more than he thought he was because she sat on the other side of the counter and just watched him intently. Before all she had done was greeted him a ‘good morning’ and sipped her coffee slowly while scrolling through her phone. Kira used to overwhelm him easily, babbling on and asking all sorts of questions, it was too much, but lately she’s backed off, given him space.

Today though, all of her attention was focused on him.

It made him want to squirm.

He resolutely ignored her, aside from a head nod in greeting when she first came out, and continued to measure ingredients and mix the batter up. Pulling the flat griddle out of the cupboard and setting it up on the counter.

“Are you alright?” Kira finally asked after long minutes of silence between them.

Stiles shrugged a shoulder and just replied with “I’m fine,” before going back to what he was doing. It was all he ever really said when asked that question if he answered it at all. 

Something about the way she was assessing him got under his skin though, like he knew that she knew his answer was all bullshit. Kira was nice, sweet, from what he got to know of her. She was probably the least threatening person in the whole house.

“You can tell me you know. I won't say anything to anyone else. Sometimes it helps just to talk about it.”

Her sincerity was palpable, and Stiles could tell that she was trying to hold herself back for his sake. And he knew, once upon a time, that she was right. He used to be able to talk to his dad all the time about anything and everything and the man would listen without fail. His mom, before she passed, hung on his every word like it was the gospel.

But things weren’t the same; his parents were both dead and nothing in the world would make that right.

And after his dad was killed, he had no one.

He hasn’t had a person to confide in for a very long time.

And maybe it was a combination of that, of him being so lonely he felt like his chest was being carved out and emptied, of not having anyone in his corner and the fact that Kira looked as threatening as a newborn kitten that he finally decided to give voice to his tumultuous thoughts.

He stepped away from the counter, pacing a bit in the kitchen, running a hand through his hair, “I just,” he started and had to swallow down the lump trying to render him mute. Kira sitting patiently and attentively while he got himself together.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Okay,” she nodded and smiled a little, “do you want to be here?”

“I don’t have to stay,” Stiles countered quickly, it was something that Peter and Chris promised him that he was only now thinking might be true. “They told me they wouldn’t keep me here.” Not if Stiles wanted to leave. Peter and Chris swore to him that they weren’t like the others Stiles had been with, he wasn’t a prisoner. He was only tentatively starting to believe that.

“I know.” Kira agreed readily, “But, do you want to stay?”

Stiles didn’t really have a good answer for that. He felt like a burden like he didn’t really belong. They had done all these things for him and nothing was expected in return, but part of him was waiting for the catch.

“I, I don’t know,” he answered. It was only partially truthful.

“Well, what do you _want_ to do?” Kira asked gently.

That stumped Stiles for a half-second until he laughed bitterly. “It’s not like I have any skills aside from giving a blowjob or getting fucked. Pretty sure I can't add that to a resume. Not to mention the practical fact that I haven’t even graduated high school.”

Kira cringed a little at his crass words, but she stayed steadfast. “How old were you when you dropped out?” She steered the subject away.

Stiles sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck with a hand, “Fifteen, just shy of my sixteenth birthday. I was a sophomore.”

“Alright,” Kira nodded, taking it all in, a small smile returning. “So do you want to finish? Or just get your GED?”

He started at her, blinking through his incomprehension. “What? Just walk down to the local high school and re-enroll? Kira, I’m _eighteen_ , it would be ridiculous for me to go back now. Hell, I wouldn’t even graduate until I was over twenty.”

“Okay, so you get your GED then,” Kira replied like it was the easiest answer in the world.

He just fixed her with a blank stare and waited, too dumbstruck to even speak.

Kira softened her expression, “Look, I know I don’t know you well, but I know you’re smart. If you want your GED all you have to do is tell Chris or Peter and they’ll help you out.”

Stiles scoffed and mumbled under his breath, “so I can be even _more_ of a burden, yeah no.” He went back to mixing the batter for the pancakes, a touch more aggressively than needed. He wanted to be done with this conversation; this was already more than he’s talked at a time since he’s gotten here.

“No one here thinks you’re a burden Stiles,” Kira said softly.

Stiles cursed supernatural everything.

“Have you ever seen _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_?” Kira asked, changing the subject.

Stiles gave her a nod as he poured out some batter, the griddle sizzling.

“We watch it every Christmas. The whole pack, not just the people here that you’ve met, but the main pack as well. It started before I got here, and someone told me once that it’s Chris’s favorite. I don’t really know the whole story there, but I’m sure if you asked him he’d tell you.”

She shakes her head as Stiles checks the bubbles on the pancakes, waiting for the right moment before flipping them.

“The point is, I – I see Chris in that elf. Hermey – the one who wanted to be a Dentist – you know who I’m talking about?” Kira pauses and waits for Stiles to nod before continuing.

“See, Chris is like that, he never got along with his family, never really fit in with them, in the same way that Hermey never really wanted to make toys his whole life. And Peter, well, Peter saved him – and I won't get into _that_ story because it’s not mine to tell – but ever since then Chris has saved others in return. He saved me. Saved everyone in this house. In a way, we’re his own island of misfit toys. Stiles, for better or worse – and I hope not worse – he saved you too. It isn't so you’re indebted to him, it’s because that’s just _what he does_.”

She smiles, completely sincere and genuine in her words. And it gives Stiles a tiny sliver of hope.

“Peter and Chris, they’re good people. And I know it’s a lot to have faith in, to allow yourself to believe, but it’s true. If you want to do something, if you want anything, they would provide it, no questions asked.”

Her smile dims a little and Stiles flips his pancakes revealing their golden brown bottoms.

“But, if you wanted to leave, no one would stop you. We won't ever force you to stay. I do know that everyone in this house would miss you though. That everyone only wants what will be best for you, no matter what that is.”

Stiles snorts, unable to hold back the snarky reply, “you’d all just miss me cooking.”

Kira laughs, smiling widely, “you do cook really well.”

She sobers though, “You’re never a burden. Pack takes care of pack. And you became pack from the moment Chris found you. You just have to choose whether or not you want to accept that.”

Stiles dipped his head, unable to look her in the eye, too caught up in his head and everything she’s been telling him. “I’m not worth all that though.”

He startles when her hand is on his arm, he hadn’t even heard her move. She looks him in the eyes before pulling him into a tight hug, “we think you are.”

His arms are slack by his sides for a few seconds before he embraces her in return. He doesn’t fully believe that he is worth it, but maybe his viewpoint is skewed after so long and everything he’s been through.

Hope is a scary thing, and taking a leap of faith has never been his strong suit. But it’s been more than nice here, so maybe he can allow himself to stay for a while longer.

* * *

Peter would never claim to be a good man. Even if he came into his Alpha power with the noblest of intentions, that doesn’t make him _good_. Not by a fucking long shot.

So he doesn’t stop his thoughts when they drift to whiskey-colored eyes looking up at him, the shiny wetness in them a counter to their determined set. He allows the scene to replay itself over and over in his head where its fantasy and not bitter reality. The boy was beautiful as he dropped effortlessly to his knees, and had it been for any other reason Peter would have welcomed it.

He pulls back from the harsh truth, allowing his mind to spin a tale of what could have been without fear and trauma.

Peter never claimed to be a good man.

He doesn’t stop his hand’s path down his chest and stomach until he’s solidly gripping his hardening cock, water from the shower sluicing down his skin. He strokes himself firmly, imaging pouty lips bitten red in anticipation as sure hands reach out to free him from the confines of his jeans.

The imagined heat of the initial contact makes him groan and he grips himself tighter, thumbing at the head of his cock. The precome giving a smoother slide as he works himself over. He doesn’t bother to stifle his moan as the fantasy shifts and his cock is engulfed in warm wet heat. The boy on his knees bobbing his head, eyes closed and lost in his own rhythm, just taking Peter along for the ride.

He lets the images paint the back of his eyelids, how Stiles would look up at him through thick eyelashes, watching as he takes Peter apart, licking and sucking his cock deeper and deeper into his lush mouth until its pushing at the back of the boy’s throat. The swallow almost undoes him. The constriction threatening to force his orgasm right then and there. He holds back through sheer force of will, wanting to prolong the experience as much as possible.

It still doesn’t last as long as he wants it to. Not when Stiles’s eyes are tearing up, not when he’s looking up at Peter the way he is, lips stretched obscenely wide around Peter’s cock. The boy looks like sin incarnate on his knees and Peter is weak to it.

He comes with a twist of his wrist and a groan. Stiles swallowing down every last drop and licking up the remains from his lips.

Peter could never be called a _good_ man.

He stays in the shower long enough for the come to wash down the drain and for him to finish perfunctorily washing the rest of his body. He’s sated, and maybe he should feel guilty for lusting after Stiles the way he is but he’s too honest with himself to be.

He _wants_ Stiles. He’s felt something for the boy ever since he saw him and Peter is not a man to deny himself something he desires. He’s already overcome odds that would be insurmountable to some to save the person he loves most in the world. So, he may not be good, but he is patient.

He and Chris have talked about Stiles at length, discussed what it is they really feel for the boy. They’ve always been honest with one another and this is no different. They’re both attracted to him, they both feel something for him, and they both would like to explore that further.

They know what they want. They want Stiles. Now, it’ll all depend on what it is _Stiles_ wants. Because _nothing_ will happen between them until they know how the boy feels. Peter will never say a word to him, neither will Chris. Nothing will happen without Stiles’s clear, and hopefully enthusiastic, consent.

For now, Peter will be patient.

And if he can't help himself when he’s alone and the lust creeps in, well, he never claimed to be good.


	3. Searching for Someone I Know in Unfamiliar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone from Stiles's past makes a reappearance and Stiles opens up about the things that have happened to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo.... apparently I am not to be trusted when I promise to post chapters at certain times. I'm really sorry I never got this out weeks ago, like I said I was going to, but RL came and kicked my ass instead. Only one more chapter and an epilogue to go! I hope you enjoy and thanks so much for sticking around for this :) 
> 
> Special thank you to vMures for the beta and cheerleading :) <3 <3

They had been delaying or outright avoiding requests from Talia to meet the newest member of the pack, too afraid that more new people would overwhelm Stiles just as he was starting to show signs of improvement, but Chris knew that he and Peter couldn’t delay it forever.

So when he got the call inviting them all to the main packhouse for a cookout he agreed that they would all come. Chris spent some time talking to Stiles, making sure the boy wanted to go with them while also letting him know that if he didn’t want to go no one would force him. Pleasantly enough Stiles agreed to go without a fuss, shrugging his shoulder and telling him a quick “okay” before he went back to making lunch for the rest of the house.

Chris had noticed that Stiles was getting along better with the rest of the household, even going so far as to starting conversations with Kira, Erica, and Isaac now too, instead of solely with Jackson. It had been a few weeks now, but they were all more settled, hearing Stiles laugh for the first time with Kira, and Erica had brought a smile to Chris’s face that lasted the rest of the day.

His boy was safe. He was healing. It was progress and it was good.

Chris knew there was still more work to be done, that ideally, he’d like to get Stiles into a counselor to help with the trauma he’s endured in his life, but he was still waiting for Stiles to open up to him or Peter first before making that choice for him. As long as he wasn’t withdrawing Chris let it be. Some things just needed to happen at their own pace.

The day before they were all due over to the Hale Manor for lunch Stiles had approached him to ask what the pack there might like to eat. He wanted to cook something to bring over with him, and while Chris didn’t want him to have to worry about that, knowing Talia and Michael there would be more than enough food there as it was, he didn’t want to outright discourage him either.

He asked if Stiles wanted to bake something instead, knowing the whole pack at large had the biggest sweet tooth. Stiles had just nodded and given a small shy smile and then scampered off into the kitchen, phone clutched in his hand, and scrolling through recipes.

Several hours later and Stiles was packing up cookies and muffins into every available Tupperware container in the house and swatting the hands that tried to steal any treats right away. He threatened to stay in the kitchen and watch over all his baked goods if the pack wouldn’t promise to leave them alone until the next day.

It didn’t come to that, thankfully, Chris making them all swear they wouldn’t touch it, and they all settled down to eat mountains of Chinese food that Chris ordered to be delivered while Stiles was flitting around the kitchen in a focused frenzy.

The best thing was that Stiles didn’t even apologize for not making dinner like he had been since that first week, instead, he was relaxing with the rest of the pack and loading his plate up with a little of everything that was on offer. He had grabbed Peter’s hand and smiled at his ‘wolf with a nod to their boy then, happy that Stiles was content and enjoying himself.

And later when they all arranged themselves on the various surfaces in the living room to watch a movie after dinner, Chris was inordinately pleased by Stiles’s decision to sit on the couch next to him and Peter. There may have been a few inches between them still, but it was as close as Stiles had ever voluntarily sat next to anyone before. Chris would silently count that as a win. 

* * *

Stiles was nervous about going over to the main packhouse with the rest of the group that he had only now started to really get to know. He still wasn’t talking much to Lydia, he would still get odd flashes of the grotesque woman covering the redhead’s doll-like features, but it didn’t linger as long as it did the first time. With a blink and a head shake the image would fall away but it still freaked him out every time.

He knew that she knew that he was avoiding her and he was just grateful that she wasn’t forcing her presence on him. It wasn’t fair to her, Stiles understood, but he couldn’t help it. Until he could figure out what was happening and make it _stop_ he couldn’t help that he was scared of her.

He didn’t know _what_ she was, not like ‘the trio’ – as everyone seemed to call Erica, Isaac, and Boyd collectively – who were clearly ‘wolves like Chris and Peter. Or even Kira and her fiery fox aura, and Jackson who was a ‘wolf too but also something _else_. But the unknown of Lydia was still frightening to him.

Stiles had gotten better about talking to the rest of them, especially after his talk with Kira in the kitchen the other week, and he _felt_ more like himself than he had in a long while. He still had his off moments, where he would get too inside his head, quiet and still, and he couldn’t really help it, often retreating into the kitchen to bake something as a means of distraction.

But he was talking, which was a feat in itself, considering how long he had been made to keep quiet so as not to upset those around him. They all took it in stride, never seeming annoyed when he would get worked up enough to ramble about one topic or another, but rather actively engaging him in conversation.

So, he felt better. Part of him was still waiting for the catch, for the trick behind all the smiles and laughs. He didn’t _want_ to think that way though, not really. Stiles hadn’t sensed anything malicious about the people he was surrounded by, and he liked to think that after everything that had happened he had a keen sense of these things now.

He could tell they all had questions they wanted to ask him, were waiting for him to spill his sad sob story but no one voiced them directly. Stiles wasn’t ready for that, not yet. He knew there was no shame in talking about it, that it would probably help him heal mentally in the long run, but he still wasn’t fully trusting in anyone to have someone act as a confidant to him yet.

All that aside, he was still nervous to be meeting new people. Stiles wanted to make a good impression; he didn’t want to be seen as the broken little victim that Chris rescued a little over a month ago. He was glad that the majority of his injuries were all healed, there were still a few faint pinkish scars along his neck from where the collar Deucalion made him wear had dug in and broken the skin, but the welts on his back and the bruises were all faded away. His ribs were still tender, it was to be expected from what he read online – he had refused to allow Chris or Peter to take him to be examined by a doctor when he first came to the house – for what he assumed were fractures from the last time Deucalion had worked him over.

At least he wouldn’t be alone, if worst came to worst, he could seek out someone from the house and stay by them if he got too overwhelmed with whoever was going to be at the main packhouse. Jackson and Lydia were driving over in Jackson’s Porsche, the trio taking Erica’s red Mustang, and Stiles riding with Kira, Chris, and Peter in Chris’s SUV. All of Stiles’s baked goods in the back for him to deliver when they arrived.

It didn’t take long for them to drive to the Hale Mansion, and it really was a mansion from what Stiles could see from the tinted window. The house was huge and sprawling, he couldn’t even guess at how many rooms it must contain, and it looked to be at least three stories high. It was done in wood and stone, looking like something out of a fairytale with climbing vines, large windows, and a huge wraparound porch. There was even a porch swing off to one corner of the house and the sunlight made the colored leaded glass of some of the many decorative mosaics sparkle.

“Pretty, isn't it?” Kira asked from next to him, a kind smile on her face.

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed.

As soon as the SUV was parked they were out and helping to gather the Tupperware containers from the back so they could all be carried inside. Peter led the way, and they weren’t even at the steps up to the porch before the large double-doors of the entry were swung open. There was a regal looking woman standing there with a large smile on her face, her dark brown hair falling past her shoulder. She was wearing a fitted blouse in a striking navy blue and a black pencil skirt, she would be seriously intimidating to Stiles if it wasn’t for the fact that she was smiling so widely and also barefoot. Those two things softened her considerably.

“Peter, Chris, Kira, lovely to see you all again, everyone is out back,” the woman greeted as they all made their way up the stairs.

“Ah, and you must be Stiles,” she directed his way, smile firmly in place and a motherly warmth in her deep brown eyes.

“I’m Talia Hale, feel free to call me Talia, dear. I’m so glad that you could make it. Make yourself at home, and let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said with a tiny stutter, balancing his stack of Tupperware in one hand to give her a small wave from behind Chris and Peter.

“What’ve you got there?” She asked with a nod to the various containers. Talia looked over to Peter, “you didn’t have to bring anything, Peter, we have plenty of food.”

Before Peter could say anything the words were tumbling from Stiles’s mouth, “um, sorry, ma’am, it was my idea, I wanted to bring something, so, I, um, I baked these for everyone.” Stiles could feel his cheeks heating and he hoped he didn’t look as ridiculous as he currently felt.

“Oh, darling, that’s very thoughtful of you. I’m sure everyone will love what you’ve made. Why don’t we bring these all into the kitchen, alright?”

Stiles just nodded at her and followed them all into the house. He wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings until Talia led them into the large open kitchen.

It could easily be classed as a chef’s wet dream.

Endless counter space, large oversized stainless steel appliances, cabinets for days and so tastefully decorated it could be something out of a magazine. Stiles was just glad that his mouth wasn’t gaping open as he took it all in. He could cook for an _army_ in a kitchen like this.

When they had all set down the containers Stiles started to point to each one to tell Talia what was inside, Erica and Boyd joining them as Stiles was still listing off all the things he had made.

“And he wouldn’t let us try any of them,” Erica whined as she reached for a container of cookies.

On reflex Stiles slapped her hand away, to Erica’s outraged cry of “see!” and he blushed as he realized what he had done, dropping his head and not meeting anyone’s eyes.

But Talia burst out laughing, “That’s what you get.”

Stiles had looked up at that, smiling shyly at Talia. She returned with a nod and a soft smile of her own, her eyes still dancing with mirth.

“They look perfect for dessert. I’m sure Stiles will let you have some then Erica.”

Stiles nodded in answer.

Erica huffed, but she was smiling too, so Stiles knows he didn’t offend her or anything. Erica, as he was learning, was just like that. She liked to tease and taunt, but it wasn’t done meanly. He was glad for that; he doesn’t think he would like her if she was the mean-girl type that she looked like from the way she dressed and carried herself.

“Ready to meet everyone, Stiles? I can introduce you to them, or if it would be more comfortable for you, Peter or Chris could.”

Stiles took a deep breath, he wasn’t really sure if he was ready, he could already hear the noises of those out back filtering in through the sliding doors off the living room, and it sounded like a lot. Kira reached out from beside him and took his hand quickly, giving it a squeeze. He startled a little at the contact but she didn’t seem to notice, just giving him a sunny smile.

“Uh, yeah, ma’am –”

“Talia, please.”

“– Talia,” Stiles corrected at her prompting, “Yeah, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“They’re all harmless, I promise.” She said as she gestured for him to follow her out to the back yard.

* * *

Even though they had talked it over with Stiles, Chris was worried about how he would handle meeting everyone from the Hale pack. He could easily scent that Stiles was nervous, but it was laced through with a thread of excitement. That was enough for Chris to not call the whole thing off.

Peter didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, and for now, it seems like his ‘wolf was right, though Chris would never admit it to him, Peter had a big enough ego as it was.

So, Chris watched as Talia led Stiles around to the various members of the Hale family and pack. He kept a close eye on the boy even if there wasn’t a need to, it’s not like there was any danger to be found here and he knew that no one would treat Stiles poorly. Peter stayed by his side, smugly satisfied with Stiles interacting with new people.

They didn’t try and listen in on the conversations, but Chris smiled slightly every time he heard Stiles laughing at something that someone had said. He could see it as the afternoon progressed just how much Stiles was starting to come out of his shell. It was fascinating to get a glimpse at the person that Stiles _is_ instead of what he was _made_ to be.

The boy was witty and sarcastic, but not mean. He was funny and Chris could tell that he was smart too. There was a keen intelligence to Stiles that had been carefully hidden but was starting to come out as the boy would talk and ramble on about inane topics that Chris had no clue he knew anything about.

The only thing that Chris wanted more than anything else was for Stiles to confide in him or Peter. They knew that bad things happened in his past, it was obvious, and that’s not even mentioning how Chris found him at Deucalion’s. But Stiles had yet to say a word. It was an unwritten rule in the house that you didn’t ask, everyone knew from their own experiences how hard things like that were to talk about and no one liked being forced.

But Chris didn’t even know Stiles’s _last name_. They knew _nothing_ about him. One night when he and Peter were up late talking about Stiles, Peter figured that he probably didn’t have any family since he never asked to call anyone, never asked to leave. It was sad to think that this vibrant boy didn’t have a single person from his life before that would be missing him.

And sure, Stiles could have easily used the phone Chris had given him to make any number of calls or texts to whoever he wanted to but he never did.

It made Chris want to know _everything_ about Stiles. It was a mystery right in front of him but he didn’t dare to ask the questions that danced on the tip of his tongue every time Stiles got too still and quiet. Every time the boy flinched away from contact before catching himself and allowing the touch.

Peter, of course, was no different. Perhaps more patient though. Willing to sit and wait for his prey to come to him instead of chasing it down. It even surprised Chris when Peter took Deaton’s answer about Stiles’s possible magic in stride and didn’t immediately call up the Druid to harass him for being so vague. Chris knows that Peter reached out to his contact, Amara, to try and get her assessment on Stiles but the witch has been out of the country and won't be due back for another month.

Michael, Talia’s mate and husband, was finishing up with the food on the grill as Talia and Derek bustle around to set up enough places for everyone at the various picnic tables and such outside. Stiles has been talking animatedly with Laura for the last little while, laughing and smiling and Chris feels a warmth inside at seeing Stiles so carefree.

There’s the distant rumble of a car coming up the long drive and as Chris looks around he realizes that the newest member of Talia’s pack has been missing. He doesn’t know much about the man, having only met him a few times but the rest of the pack has taken well to him since he moved into town.

Chris takes Peter’s hand and leads him over to a table, waiting on the others to take their seats as well as the deputy makes his way through the house and out into the backyard. 

* * *

When he sees who is calling his name Stiles _runs_.

“Jordan?!” Comes out of his mouth, breathless and excited. He never thought he’d see his sort-of friend again.

He barrels into the man, who staggers slightly before he can wrap arms around Stiles in the biggest hug he’s had in years.

“I missed you so much kid,” Jordan says right in Stiles’s ear and Stiles can barely suppress the little sob that wants to escape, squeezing Parrish tighter.

When they finally separate, too soon for Stiles’s liking, Jordan just holds his shoulders and looks him over.

Stiles can’t keep his own eyes on Jordan’s face, too scared about what exactly the other man is seeing. It’s been a little over a month, but some parts of his neck are sporting small pink scars from the collar that Deucalion had forced him to wear and used as a punishment.

His ribs still ache from the beating he took right before Chris had won him in that poker hand. He can't help it when his arm wraps around himself, pressing his palm into the worst of the ache.

“ _Stiles_ ,” he says, a sorrowful sigh, like he can tell things about Stiles that he’s never told the man before. Like he _knows_.

“I –” but Stiles can't even make the words come through the lump in his throat. He blinks and his eyes are blurry, he has to scrub his free hand over them before he can see clearly again.

“It’s okay kid,” Jordan says as he slings an arm around Stiles’s shoulders and leads him away from the rest of the people in the large back yard. Stiles hadn’t even cared about the fact that he was probably making a scene, the world had faded away from him when he first spotted Jordan.

They find a quiet spot under a large tree at the edge where the manicured lawn meets the wild forest. They sit on the bench there, in the shade of the tree, and for a moment Stiles is content. He doesn’t pay much attention to everyone sitting down to eat, is grateful that they aren’t making this a thing, and waiting on Stiles and Jordan to join them. 

He knows Jordan has questions, can tell in the furtive glances he’s been sneaking at the man as they walked over here. Even a quick look up and Stiles can tell that Chris and Peter have been watching him intently by how quickly they’ve turned away from him. There’ll be more questions later tonight he’s sure. He’s kept his silence for so long and seeing Jordan here, now, has given him a strength that he was lacking before. Stiles feels like he could talk about some things now if he wanted to.

Stiles bumps his shoulder into Jordan’s, prompting the man to finally speak.

“I have stuff for you,” is not what Stiles was expecting out of his mouth.

“What stuff?” Stiles turns his body so he can see him better.

“After,” Jordan clears his throat, “I was able to get in the house, box up some of your mom and dad’s things. I bought the Jeep back,” Jordan gives a small, sad smile at the widening of Stiles’s eyes, “I know you were so excited to be fixing it up with your dad so you could drive it. That it was your mom’s. I couldn’t let them scrap it.”

Stiles wipes away the stray tears running down his cheeks. He’s been forced into silence before, but he can't remember ever being stunned speechless like this. What could he even say to that?

“Anyway, I have it all in a storage unit in Morro Bay. I went to find you, after, to tell you, but by the time I was able to get the information on where you were placed the foster family reported you as a runaway.” Jordan rests his hand on Stiles’s shoulder, “Stiles, kid, what happened?”

He hasn’t told anyone what had happened to him, what actions led to him being at Deucalion’s casino that night. But he doesn’t have it in him to do the same to Jordan. Jordan, out of anyone, is safe for Stiles to confide in, Stiles _trusts_ him. The man has always been there, like the big brother that Stiles never had, the minute he joined the department in Morro Bay where his dad was Sheriff. He was good friends with his dad and a stellar cop. 

“It,” Stiles runs a hand through his hair, “the family was bad. When I got there they had two other kids too, girls, and they both told me that the man, Jody’s husband, didn’t like boys. I brushed it off, the husband – Mark – he was out of town on some business trip and I could tell that Jody wasn’t happy to have me there. Not that I wanted to be there, but I didn’t really have a choice. I knew it was an emergency placement and was just glad that I would be close enough for the funeral. So I didn’t say anything.”

Stiles takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, the night that Mark came home flickering behind his eyelids.

“It was about seven or so when Mark came back. And Jody, she was agitated. She had spent the morning calling CPS trying to see if they had found someone else to take me. The girls were gone, at a friend’s house or something, I didn’t really pay attention, I was up in my room but I could hear Jody through the vents. At least the funeral was the day before.”

Jordan is watching him intently, but there’s a tightness around his eyes like he’s putting the pieces together even before Stiles tells him.

A chill runs up Stiles’s spine and he shudders to try and shake it off.

“She was frantic, pushy, but it wasn’t getting her anywhere. At the time I thought she hated me. Mark arrived after dinner, and when he walked in, when he looked at me, it just. I felt _dirty_. Jody saw, but she didn’t say anything, just watched as her husband introduced himself to me.” 

Stiles shakes his head, trying to drive the image of Mark’s deviant smile from it.

Jordan has always been a good cop. “Did he?”

“No,” Stiles rushes out quickly, follows again softer, “No. He didn’t. But he was going to. He would creep outside my bedroom door. Open it and just stare at me. I couldn’t sleep at night unless I knew he was already in bed or was gone. I didn’t have a way to lock the door. So I would lie there, would hear him, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Why didn’t you come to me, Stiles? You know I would have helped you.” Jordan, thankfully, doesn’t sound hurt like Stiles expected him to be. 

“I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking.” It was true. Since he was told his dad had gotten shot in the line of duty, that he was rushed to the hospital. That they did everything they could but he still didn’t make it, Stiles’s head was in a fog. Static buzzed where his thoughts usually ran rampant. He was numb, heart and soul, and the last of his family was dead. He didn’t have anyone else left. 

Jordan wraps his arm around him and pulls him into his side, “It’s okay, I get it.”

Stiles nods into his shoulder. “When he started coming into the room and getting himself off at the end of my bed I knew I couldn’t stay there anymore so I ran.”

_“Jesus Christ”_ Jordan hisses under his breath. 

“Jody didn’t hate me, but she knew what her husband was, what he wanted, what he’d probably done before. She was trying to get me out of there before he came home. She kept trying even when he was there, not where he could hear her, but she did. There just wasn’t a place for me at the time.”

“I have to report this, Stiles, you know that right?” Jordan says gently.

Stiles does, he should have said something back then. When he got tired of wallowing in self-pity since he ran away, he would sometimes turn his thoughts back to Mark and Jody. Stiles would wonder if there had been any other boys in that house since he left. Or, if Mark decided to go after one of the girls instead. Stiles would blame himself for the hypothetical things that Mark could be doing to someone else all because Stiles wasn’t strong enough to say anything at the time. That he didn’t trust that he would actually be listened to. With Jordan, he knows better, he wouldn’t have told Jordan the story otherwise. “I know.”

“You’ll give a statement?” There’s a tinge of surprised pride in his voice. Stiles can tell that he wasn’t expecting an easy agreement on this point.

“Yeah, Jordan, I will.”

“Good,” Jordan ruffles the hair at the back of his head. “Why didn’t you come to me when you ran?”

“I –” Stiles hesitates, because he really didn’t think that was an option. He just remembers needing to get out, to get away, and there was no logical thought process behind it. And he wonders now, if he had gone to Jordan then, how differently things would be. He looks back over to Peter and Chris, two people who have been so kind to him, saved him in a way, and tries to imagine never meeting them.

He doesn’t like that picture at all. And he realizes that in a handful of weeks, he’s actually grown to like them. Trust them a little even. They’ve opened their home to him, done nothing but try and help him. 

“I didn’t think I had anyone left,” Stiles says quietly, it’s _a_ truth, but maybe not the _whole_ truth. But he really can't bear to say that for as much as Stiles thought of Jordan as a big brother, that he wasn’t secure in the fact that Jordan would feel the same way. That he wondered if Jordan was only nice to him because he was friends with his dad. That secretly he felt the same as some of the other cops, thought Stiles was an annoyance and a nuisance. He was sad and orphaned, and doubt and insecurity plagued him then.

But after hearing about what Jordan did, getting his mom and dad’s things – the Jeep – he knows how wrong he was. He can’t take it back, but he can spare Jordan the knowledge of his darker thoughts.

“Shit Stiles,” Jordan sighs and pulls Stiles closer, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, “you’ve always got me, okay. Always.”

Stiles turns his head into Jordan’s shoulder and nods.

* * *

They exchange numbers after their little heart-to-heart and Jordan feeds him bits about the Hales.

He tells him how they’re a good pack. That Chris and Peter especially would bend over backward for anyone they consider in their pack or under their protection. Jordan making him grumbly agree that that means Stiles included.

Jordan lets him know that if he ever needs anything that all he has to do is ask, whether he asks Chris and Peter or Jordan or even Talia. No one would deny a reasonable request. 

And then Jordan gets serious again. Says that if Stiles doesn’t want to stay with them, with any of the Hales, that he has a couch that Stiles is welcome to, that if need be he’ll go out and buy a house or rent a larger apartment, whatever Stiles needs.

As much as that might make things easier for Stiles, more familiar, he doesn’t jump at the opportunity. Aside from the fact that it would be majorly inconvenient for Jordan, and no way is he making the guy get a larger place, he does want to give Peter and Chris a chance.

Having Jordan’s blessing on the pack, on the men he’s staying with, it goes a long way to ease Stiles’ mind.

* * *

They eventually join the rest of the group, piling their plates up with food and sitting down in two open spaces across from Chris and Peter. No one makes any comments, and Peter picks up an easy conversation with Jordan like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

It allows Stiles to relax and take a breath. He’s quietly ecstatic about seeing Jordan again, and hearing that he actually lives in town so he could visit him easily. He’s glad that Jordan had such good things to say about the Hales, about Chris and Peter in particular.

So Stiles eats and lets the conversations float around him without needing to engage. He’s happy today; it’s been a good day even if he was nervous in the beginning. And good, happy days are something he cherishes now. He watches Peter and Chris, allowing himself to think about how he feels about the two. 

Stiles never would have thought he could like ‘wolves before, not after the disastrous reveal from Theo and his gang, especially not after seeing the monster lurking under Deucalion’s skin. He finds himself liking Chris and Peter though. Well, honestly, all the Hale ‘wolves. 

He’s still been staying in their house, and in the evenings, after dinner, it’s just the three of them that retreat back there. It’s been perfectly innocent, watching movies or reading until it was time to go to bed. Stiles finds, as he unpacks that box in his mind, that he _likes_ them. He’s been beginning to trust them, not being so skeptical when they tell him something or dismissing it as a lie. But moreover, he _likes_ spending time with them, being in their presence, having quiet conversations with them before going to sleep. 

When he realizes that he has a crush on them both its enough of a shock that he drops his fork completely, hearing distantly as it clangs against the edge of the plate.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Jordan, Chris, Peter, or even Talia, all of whom are shooting him various looks of concern. He flushes, a little embarrassed at his own discovery and reaction, and shakes his head at them, giving a small smile and mumbling that “it’s nothing”.

Talia nods and leaves it alone, Jordan and Chris looking at him for a few seconds more before turning back to their discussion on preferred weaponry of the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department, but Peter isn't so easily dissuaded. The ‘wolf is sitting directly opposite him and Stiles doesn't have the slightest idea what is going through his head. 

And then Peter smirks, Stiles can feel Peter’s foot rubbing gently at Stiles’s ankle, and Jesus fuck, is Peter playing _footsie_ with him right now?! Stiles feels his cheeks heating up, he must be bright red by how hot he feels.

“Sure it’s ‘nothing’, sweetheart?” Peter purrs out.

Stiles can't even find the words to answer that, he alternates between looking at Peter and then looking at Chris, because _surely_ Chris has to see what his husband? – partner? – is doing right now. But Chris isn't paying either of them a damn bit of attention and Stiles doesn’t know what to do with that either. It’s one thing for Stiles to _just_ realize that he has a crush on them both; it’s another for Peter to be _flirting_ with him. 

And what does that really say about what Stiles assumed their relationship was? Because Stiles knows that Chris and Peter are together, but apparently he was missing the finer details. He has to be, right? He’s seen looks similar to the one Peter is giving him, he _knows_ what it means. Before it would have terrified him, it would have come with expectations and things that Stiles knew he didn’t want or wasn’t ready for. But now, now he thinks he might be, but he can't at the expense of Peter and Chris’s relationship. He refuses to be a dirty secret. 

It might have been what Harris and Brunski were trying to train him for in some twisted way. Harems, as Stiles knows them, and the concubines within them were treated as little more than whores. Sexual slaves bought and sold for their Master’s pleasure and nothing more. That’s how Harris told him it was going to be, Brunski saying he was little more than a warm-wet fleshlight.

It’s not how Stiles remembers reading about the harems of old when he fell into a wiki binge in freshman year. Harems of the past were sacred places for women, housing wives, daughters, and concubines alike. It was for the protection of those within the harem. It wasn’t a fancy name for a brothel like Harris made it out to be. 

And being in Chris and Peter’s harem – _pack_ – he can see the parallels to the harems of old, can see what the supernatural world possibly _meant_ them to be before people like Harris and Deucalion twisted it around to suit their dark and evil desires.

Stiles can feel the caress of the foot on his ankle, steady but not demanding, and it makes him smile shyly at Peter, not meeting the ‘wolf’s eyes. It’s nice, and it’s been a long while since he’s had something nice. He knows he won't do anything about it, aside from forcing himself to have a frank discussion with them both, but maybe his realization isn't one-sided. Maybe he could have this.

He just needs to figure out if it’s what he wants. 

* * *

Stiles expects there to be questions after he follows Chris and Peter back to their house for the night. Expects that they will finally give voice to every thought that has been lingering behind their eyes since he’s gotten here. But they don’t.

The night is normal in its routine. They shower and change for bed before sitting on the couch to watch some TV. They don’t crowd him, even if Peter is sitting a little closer than usual, letting his leg rest against Stiles’s in a way he would have restrained himself from doing before. And Stiles doesn’t pull back. For the first time, he welcomes the touch, the comfort, and the lack of anything nefarious lurking behind it. 

He’s restless though. The neat little boxes in his mind have been thrown to disorder and chaos after everything that’s happened this afternoon. He’s gotten assurances he never thought he’d get, seen a friend – _a brother_ – he thought was lost. He’s made headway in his own feelings and while the underlying base of all of that is fear, there’s excitement too. He _wants_ , and yeah, it’s terrifying, it would make him vulnerable, but Stiles doesn’t want to shy away from it. He’s weighed the risks in his head, he’s got a fall back if he needs it, it could all be worth it if he just takes the leap. 

Above all else, he actually _wants_ to talk about things for once. It was easy when Jordan was asking questions, easy for Stiles to just let go and let it spill out. He can feel it even now, bubbling at the surface, words dancing across his tongue but his mouth remains shut. It’s making him fidget and twitch. He hasn’t been this unable to sit still in so long, forced to be still and quiet until it was his new normal, that it’s a strange feeling.

Finally, after his leg bounces uncontrollably for more than half the episode, Peter stills it with a soft hand on his knee. The ‘wolf is watching him, they both are, waiting. Stiles can see it, the words unsaid, and at that moment all he wants is for one of them to speak. To, in a twisted sense, give him _permission_ to lay it all out there at their feet. The clench of his own jaw is preventing him from making the first move. It _has_ to be one of them. He _needs_ them to ask.

“Sweetheart?” Peter questions after endless minutes of the silent standstill, a quirk to his eyebrow and concern in his blue eyes. 

Stiles lets out a harsh breath, pulling in air quickly on his completed exhale. It feels like the beginning of a panic attack, but that’s the last thing he wants.

“Ask,” he rasps out, eyes pleading for them to understand.

“How do you know Jordan?” Chris poses calmly, watching Stiles like a hawk.

That, that is a much easier question than Stiles was anticipating. And the words just start flowing in a rush.

“He,” Stiles still has to clear his throat and take a sip from his water, “he worked with my dad.” It hurts to talk about the man even if it’s been years but he needs to get this out, that need overriding his heartache over remembering his dad. 

“Jordan was a deputy at the station where my dad was Sheriff. They were friends, and Jordan was like an older brother to me. When,” and he almost can't get the words out, he feels his throat closing up on them, his eyes burning.

Peter squeezes his knee gently, enough to know that the ‘wolf is there, a small reassurance.

“When my dad was killed, I went to a foster home for a little while.” He hastily wipes away the wetness in his eyes and obscuring his vision. He draws his knees up to his chest, a defense mechanism, he knows, but it’s not like knowing stops the action. Stiles still wraps his arms around his legs, holding them tightly, making himself small.

Chris interrupts gently as Stiles takes a moment to breathe. “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to.”

“I kinda figured you might’ve heard when I was talking to Jordan earlier,” Stiles states with a slight shrug, not really meeting their eyes.

“It felt rude to eavesdrop, sweetheart,” Peter claims, and carefully rubs his hand along Stiles’s shoulder, comfortingly. 

“Oh,” Stiles was kind of used to having no privacy, it was a nice reminder of why things were so different here. He doesn’t really want to go into the details again, not after it being so fresh from just telling Jordan. Stiles knows that it’ll come out eventually, he offered to give his statement and when that happens he figures he’ll tell Peter and Chris then. He was going to gloss over it all when Chris speaks up instead.

“Where’d you grow up?” Chris asks, steering the conversation slightly.

“Morro Bay, it’s on the coast.” Stiles smiles slightly, remembering all the times he would go with his mom to the beach, she loved it there, they’d spend hours playing in the surf and sand, coming home exhausted and curling up on the couch in the evening, waiting for the Sheriff to get home and join them.

He hasn’t seen the beach since he ran away. 

“Did you like it there?” Chris continues, his eyes are soft, worried.

Like Chris can sense how melancholy the thoughts are making him.

Stiles nods, “Mom loved the beach.” He can't elaborate, not right now. She’s always been harder to talk about then his dad, harder to think about even.

“Do – ”

Stiles cuts him off, he doesn’t want to know what Chris was about to ask. “I ran away, from the foster home, after dad’s funeral.”

Peter nods, gives him a look, inviting him to go on.

“I – ” Stiles pauses for a brief second before continuing, “I was homeless for a bit. It wasn’t too bad, it was summer. I made my way down to L.A., panhandled for a bit of money when I needed it; though people were oddly friendly to a lone kid on the streets. Slept on the beaches or in parks. It sucked at times, but it could have been a lot worse, I guess. I stayed clear of the creeps.”

Stiles’s brows draw down as he realizes that’s not entirely true. “Well, I thought I did, at the time.”

Theo was… complicated.

In the beginning, the guy looked like a savior. But Stiles knows the true ending to that story, and Theo was never someone who had altruistic motives. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

“What happened?” Peter asks softly, the words are a counter to the look in his eyes. The ‘wolf looks murderous, like he’s taking a tally of all the bad that Stiles’s story has to offer and promising retribution for every slight. 

That look sends a shiver down Stiles’s spine. It’s not fear, not really, some dark part of him rejoices in the fact that someone cares for him like this, would hurt those who hurt Stiles. It’s not healthy, not by a long shot, but it's _real_. It’s a deep promise of protection that Stiles feels instinctually, something he can count on without words. It’s _electrifying_. It’s something he felt about the people he loves and cares about at his core, reflected back to him in a way he’s never really known before. Stiles has always been the loyal one, the one who would do anything and everything for those closest to him.

He can't really say he’s had that in return, outside of his own dad. But with Peter, with Chris, he can see it in their eyes. He can see that they would go to the same lengths that Stiles would for someone they care about, someone they deemed _theirs_. 

Stiles has been owned in the past. But he’s never wanted to be owned like this.

He wants them as much as he wants to be theirs. 

“Theo found me on the streets. Offered me a place to stay. Said I didn’t have to do much, saw me watching the small area that I had claimed as mine for a while, learning routines and stuff. He just wanted to know how I evaded the cops for as long as I had. It was common for the police in the area to pick up teens, looking for runaways or delinquents, it was a nicer neighborhood so it made sense they would want to keep it that way. He said a few of his crew got pinched, wanted my help to keep the rest of his people from getting caught up too.”

It was always easy in the beginning and Stiles can't believe for all the street smarts he had how naive he really was. For a room of his own, a shower, and some hot meals he might as well have traded his soul to the devil.

“Theo took me back to his apartment and I got cleaned up and fed and I told him what I knew. I stayed on the streets for him during the days, watching and listening and relaying the information back to Theo and they kept on doing what they were doing under the cops’ radar.”

“I found out a few months in that they were dealing. I never asked what, I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t something I had even the slightest interest in, and I told Theo that as soon as I found out. He thought I was young and stupid, told me to let him know when that changed, but otherwise left me alone about it.”

Stiles clears his throat, even now he has trouble pinpointing when everything changed. When Theo decided he wanted more from Stiles than what Stiles was prepared to give. No roof over his head was worth Theo’s true price. But for a while, that line in the sand was a hazy thing. What Stiles thought were overtures of friendship were actually Theo’s attempts to flirt and seduce Stiles. And Stiles was oblivious to it all, well, up until Theo started calling him a tease, started getting rougher, started trying to force the issue.

Stiles always turned him down, said he wasn’t ready, he didn’t like Theo like that, and he didn’t, not at all. Theo wasn’t someone who took rejection well. He played it off in the beginning, claiming it was all a joke, except it wasn’t. Stiles grew uneasy in Theo’s presence, tried to stay around the rest of Theo’s crew instead, but none of them really liked Stiles hanging around them, were too annoyed by his antics.

When Theo dipped into his own merchandise is when things got violent. He would lash out in a fit of anger, and Sties was easily overpowered every time. He was scared, would run away from the house for days on end until he got too hungry or too tired to keep running. Or, in truly unfortunate times, when Theo would track him down and bring him back. He always apologized for losing his temper and would spend weeks making it up to Stiles.

The pattern was clear and Stiles could see all the red flags and warnings everywhere but he didn’t know what else to do. He was too young to get a job; he was a runaway and would be thrown back into the foster system if anyone caught him, so he was stuck. His dad was a Sheriff, Stiles knew better, knew it was a domestic abuse situation but he couldn’t see a way out.

Soon enough the weeks between outbursts got smaller and smaller and Theo lost all semblance of control when he heard a rival was in his area. Stiles, at the time, didn’t know what it all meant, that another ‘pack’ was encroaching on Theo’s territory, only that it pissed Theo off to no end and caused the rest of Theo’s crew to act out worse than before. Before they ignored Stiles, or just told him to go away, but with Theo’s growing agitation their hostility towards Stiles grew as well.

Things came to a head when Kali and Julia showed up at Theo’s house, that’s when Stiles’s world was thrown wildly off course, when myth merged with reality in a way he could have never anticipated. It was one thing when the guy was obsessing over Stiles and he thought he was just an abusive asshole, it was a whole other thing when his face rearranged itself and he roared at the two women. The rest of his crew – his pack – following suit.

Stiles had never seen anything so terrifying in his life. All around him were monsters and all he could think was that he was going to die there, ripped to shreds by fang and clawed _beasts_. It was Julia who stopped everything, just a wave of her hand, and Theo and his pack were frozen. If Stiles had seen Julia outside of that scenario he would have said she looked nice, that she had a kindness about her. But there was nothing kind in her eyes when she pointed one finger directly at Stiles and told Theo that they’d leave, but only if they left with _him_.

And Theo, while he sneered and growled and postured, Theo said _yes_.

For a price, of course.

It was the first time that Stiles was sold, ten thousand dollars was all he was deemed to be worth, and Theo took the money with a shrug and told Stiles he shouldn’t have been such a tease. That he wasn’t going to waste any more of his time if Stiles wasn’t going to put out and fall in line.

“Sweetheart?” Peter prompts.

Stiles realizes he’s been lost in his own thoughts for a while, staring blankly at nothing. He shakes his head, trying to refocus and glosses over most of his time with Theo, not wanting to get into the details of what happened.

“It was the first time I had seen anything like that, that I was clued into the fact that there are people out there that aren’t entirely human. Julia explained more of it to me, on days when she felt like it, when I wasn’t made to be silent at her convenience.”

“I don’t really know what she did to me, but after she painted symbols on me in her blood it was like I was stripped of my free will. I wasn’t mindless, not exactly, but it’s not like I could even _think_ about escape or harming her to get free, not without hurting myself. Other than that, and being overly exhausted whenever we left her and Kali’s house for long periods of time, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I was fed, and clothed, and had a small room to myself. She never hurt me, not directly, and everyone else around the house left me alone.”

Stiles shrugs, he’s come to terms with his time with Julia the most. It was easier then. He’s smart enough to know it was probably Stockholm or something, but it was the only time since his dad died where his mind wasn’t running over itself. He was numb to most all things, and tired when he wasn’t. It wasn’t healthy, it was forced on him and he was _bound_ to her through whatever she did to him, but putting that experience next to his time with Theo, Harris, Brunski, or Deucalion, well he’d take another year of numb nothingness any day.

Maybe not since meeting Peter and Chris and the Hale pack, not since they have given him hope and safety again, not since he’s finally reconnected with Jordan. No, he wouldn’t take more time with her now, not ever again. He was finally thinking he could be happy, could move on with his life, and heal. He wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Peter was studying him intently in his silence but Stiles only noticed as he looked up to meet the ‘wolf’s eyes. “What?”

Peter hesitates, seems to be carefully selecting his words. “Do you remember the symbols? Or what she said?”

It’s been carved into Stiles’s memory. It happened almost immediately after the supernatural was revealed to him, after Theo _sold_ him, he was high on fear and adrenaline, but the way his skin _burned_ as Julia painted strange symbols on him, Kali having to hold him down as he thrashed, he’d never forget it even if he tried.

He doesn’t say anything, the memory feels raw and his throat is dry, so he just takes out his phone and downloads a quick drawing app to use as he roughly sketches out the symbols with his finger. He shows each one to Peter, who snaps a quick picture of it on his phone, before erasing it and drawing the next one. There were eight that Stiles could see before he was turned over and Julia drew more on his back.

He had slept for over two days after that, had screamed himself raw, and passed out from the pain as she chanted.

When he woke up he was cleaned and redressed and in a new house in a new city in a state he had never been to before.

Peter’s brow furrows as each new symbol is shown to him until Stiles is done drawing. He’s pale but there’s a fiery furiousness to his eyes that’s hard for Stiles to look directly at.

With the last one shown Peter abruptly leaves the couch and heads down the hallway to his and Chris’s bedroom. Stiles slides his phone back into his pocket and redraws his knees to his chest, he _knows_ that Peter isn't mad at him, but he’s been the object of people’s rages too many times to not be wary of it.

Silence reigns for a few minutes until Peter comes back down the hallway, right to the couch and stops directly in front of Stiles. Chris opens his mouth to speak, Stiles catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, but Peter shakes his head and waves him off.

“May I touch you?” Peter asks Stiles, his voice rough and strained.

Stiles spares a glance at Chris, confused and still a little wary, Chris just looks at Peter for an extended moment and then gives Stiles a nod.

He takes that reassurance, lets it bolster him, and answers, “yes.”

Peter nods, stretches out a hand and cups Stiles’s cheek, his thumb sweeping back and forth under Stiles’s eye.

“May I hold you?” Peter asks, some raw emotion that Stiles doesn't know how to identify in Peter’s eyes.

This, if Stiles allows it, would be way more than they have _ever_ done. It’s only been casual there and gone touches before, fleeting things that could be dismissed if you didn’t want to acknowledge it. This would be much more than that. And what makes Stiles hesitate is because he doesn’t understand _why_. Why would Peter want to hold him? What’s the purpose? Stiles is fine, objectively, at least for now.

But maybe it isn't about Stiles at all, or at least not fully, maybe it’s about Peter and how he looks like someone carved out his heart while it was still beating. Still, he can't make himself move or act on the request.

He looks back over to Chris, for what he’s not sure, maybe some explanation, although it’s not like Chris is a mind reader.

“It’s for comfort. He can _see_ that you’re here and that you’re safe, but sometimes it just helps to _feel_ it too.”

Alright then, maybe Chris is a mind reader, or Stiles’s every thought is just broadcast all over his face.

“Okay,” he offers Peter and the words are barely out of his mouth before Peter is lifting him completely from the couch, and then sitting down on it again with Stiles sideways in his lap. Peter didn’t even jostle him enough to break him out of his curled up position. Peter wraps both arms around Stiles’s curled up form, pulling him back to his chest slightly and Stiles just lets himself be moved, resting his head on Peter’s shoulder.

The rumbling growl that Peter starts making sounds almost like a large cat purring. It makes him smile, but he hides it in Peter’s shoulder.

He keeps his eyes shut and rests against Peter, Chris’s hand has found its way to Stiles’s knee, and tells the rest of his story. Stiles talks a little longer about the last time he went out of town with Julia, how he was out of it for days after the fact, and how she sold him off to Harris and Brunski as soon as he was conscious again. He talks about his training, but not about their methods, not about what Brunski forced him to do. Stiles explains how Deucalion came in looking for more workers for his casino and just happened to see Stiles and demanded Harris sell him.

Harris didn’t want to, Stiles wasn’t fully trained yet and Harris didn’t want his reputation ruined if Deucalion had any complaints. It didn’t matter in the end, Deucalion got what he wanted and then proceeded to use his own methods of trying to break Stiles.

“I hadn’t been with Deucalion long. Only a few months. He was pissed because I wouldn’t do what he wanted. I wouldn’t behave, wouldn’t _obey_. I told him that I never would, and I meant it. I would rather die than ever willingly do what Deucalion wanted.”

Stiles can't suppress the shiver that runs down his spine, because as much as he means that statement, that he _would_ rather die, the reality was Deucalion was too careful for that, and eventually, Stiles would have broken. He gives Chris a small smile, grateful to the man for saving him from a fate worse than death.

“I’m glad you won me,” Stiles admits quietly, giving voice to a part of his thoughts.

“You’re ours, sweetheart, if and for as long as you want to be,” Peter states just as softly.

In Peter’s arms, surrounded by safety and comfort and warmth, he believes it without question. The choice is his, whatever he decides he knows that Chris and Peter will respect his decision.

Peter growls low in his throat, “and if I ever see any of the people that hurt you I will rip them limb from bloody limb.”


	4. Will The Open Road Hold Underneath My Feet And Take Me (Take Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Healing, a false start, more healing, Stiles's birthday, and then smut :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws 23k+ into the void and runs away* <3
> 
> Haha, OK! So, this chapter is LONG AF. I… don’t know what happened. It just is what it is at this point, sorrynotsorry. But, at least this is the final chapter before the epilogue, so YAY for that, right? :) I hope you all enjoy it, thanks for sticking with me. 
> 
> Also, I wanted to mention that in this chapter there’s talk of therapy and prescriptions as a part of the therapy and Stiles chooses not to take them, but I just want to make it clear that I’m not a medical professional and that there is nothing wrong with being prescribed meds nor is there anything wrong with taking them. You do what you need to do in a way that keeps you safe and healthy and hopefully happy. I just didn’t want it to come across like I was in some way criticizing people who take medications (because Stiles didn’t need to for the purposes of this fictional story) because that was NOT my intention at all.

It doesn’t take Peter long to get the information he needs after the chat he and Chris had with Stiles. There were questions still burning at the back of Peter’s throat since that night but he saw how much it took out of Stiles to even talk about what he did. Peter had to fight his every instinct to not drive to Nevada and rip Deucalion to bloody pieces before seeking out Harris and Brunski for worse.

Vengeance wasn’t Peter’s to seek though; it was Stiles’s, _if_ Stiles wanted it. And Stiles hadn’t made any mention of wanting to go after the people that had so thoroughly wronged him in the past. As much as Peter wanted a massacre and to lay the bodies at Stiles’s feet and promise him that nothing like that would ever happen again Peter knew he couldn’t do that.

Oh, he would stop at nothing to protect his pack, which goes without saying, but this would be different. This would be a premeditated slaughter and a small part of him knew that Stiles would not fully approve. Peter wouldn’t do anything to tarnish the image the boy had of him. Not to mention all the werewolf politics that Peter would be shitting on if he did so. Even if ‘wolves weren’t bound by human laws, they still had to answer to their own laws and customs, and as fucked up as it was Stiles wasn’t _in_ Peter’s pack until Chris got him out from under Deucalion.

Well, not that he’s _technically_ in the Hale pack as it is. Harems were a tricky gray area for most packs, while it was frowned upon by the overseeing supernatural council that worked to keep all supernaturals in line and well-kept in the shadows to have large packs, it was easy to stash additional pack members in a Harem and have those numbers overlooked. No one wanted overly large ‘wolf packs, they were seen as a threat, but large Harems, on the other hand, were seen as a larger status symbol for packs.

So even if Peter was an alpha and had his own pack, it wasn’t something he reported to the council. The Hale pack was already watched over closely, having a long lineage and a big sway in the supernatural community, especially with a Hale serving on the council, so to have _two_ Hale packs in the same area with numbers that greatly exceed a normal pack, it would have been a recipe for their own destruction.

Talia was right when she suggested he keep his status hidden. Only those in the pack knew of Peter’s ascension to alpha, it was a secret they all guarded as closely as their ‘wolf. He was never meant to be an alpha and had it not been for Christopher almost dying, he probably never would have been one at all. But all that was a long time ago, and right now his focus was on Stiles.

With what Peter knew now about where Stiles grew up – Morro Bay – and the fact that Jordan worked with Stiles’s father, it didn’t take long to track down more of Stiles’s history, to find his boy’s parents buried side-by-side in a cemetery in Morro Bay. A few hours online uncovered the tragic tale of a boy orphaned at fifteen, the beloved Sheriff succumbing to a gunshot wound in the line of duty. The article even went so far as to recount the death of Stiles’s mother as well from frontotemporal dementia when Stiles was just a child.

Unfortunately, it solidified the thought in Peter’s head on why Stiles never reached out to anyone since he’d been here. He really didn’t have anyone left from his old life, at least until he saw Jordan again.

Sad tales aside, Peter knew that the only thing was to go forward. Dwelling in the past never fixed anything. Peter resolved himself to help Stiles as much as the boy would allow, not that he wasn’t already going to do that before. The first thing on Peter’s list? Stiles needed an ID; he needed to take back his identity – Mieczysław Stilinski – if he was ever going to do anything with school or work in the future.

It was a practical item, but that didn’t make it any less important. Other things that Peter was mulling over in his brain were seeing if Stiles wanted to finish his education, or go to college, if he wanted to work, or if the boy would just let Peter and Chris take care of him – it would hardly be a hardship – but no matter what he needed to present Stiles with options. Let the boy choose the direction his future would go in, make his own decisions about his life for once.

Peter still needed to get in touch with Amara and talk to Stiles about meeting her, well, after he explained magic to the boy. He knew that whatever Julia did to him had to have harnessed his magic in some way, but he wasn’t sure what all Stiles knew about magic in general. Peter hoped the boy wouldn’t be frightened by it considering his past experiences.

Possibly the hardest topic Peter was going to have to bring up to Stiles though would be therapy. It wasn’t for everyone, Peter knew, but it could help Stiles heal, could give him healthy coping mechanisms and an unbiased ear. He and Chris would _always_ be there to listen to Stiles no matter what if he wanted to talk about things that had happened, but he still wanted to give Stiles the option.

He would give Stiles the world if the boy would let him

* * *

After Stiles told Peter and Chris all he could he expected things to change. He can admit, if only to himself, that he was worried that they would look at him differently. That they would _see_ all the things that had been done to him and stop seeing Stiles. His dark thoughts were unfounded and Stiles was relieved by that more than he thought he would be.

For the most part, things were the same. They were normal. There was a bit more flirting from Peter and touches that lingered too long to be strictly platonic, but neither of them were pushing Stiles for anything. And it’s not like they even talked about the possibility of a relationship with the three of them, but Stiles could feel it, lingering unspoken all around them when they were together.

He was terrified of wanting it as much as he was hopeful that he could have it.

It kept him hesitating, restrained, and he wasn’t sure how to move around his mental block. He knew, logically, that it probably had a lot to do with trauma from his past; he didn’t have his head so far into the sand that he thought he came out of everything unscathed. He knew he had issues, would have triggers – even if he didn’t know what they were – and that he very likely could benefit from professional help.

But _asking_ for that help was a hurdle he wasn’t ready to face. As much as he would like to ignore it all in the hopes that it would go away it just wasn’t practical. It wasn’t healthy. He was finally free, finally safe after so many years and he didn’t want to be the broken-down version of himself anymore. He wanted to be better.

How do you explain all you’ve been through while skirting around the terrifying, hidden, monstrous aspects?

Stiles couldn’t really tell his story, not fully, to anyone who didn’t already know about the supernatural underground. He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to find anyone to help him if he did ask.

Talking about everything had one immediate side effect though, it brought back the nightmares. It’s not like they ever really went away, but Stiles had gotten used to managing the reoccurring themes that would appear when he was asleep. Lately, though Chris and Peter and the rest of the pack would make appearances, either to hurt him or to be hurt with him. He knew it wasn’t true, but it always felt so _real_ , stealing his breath when he’d wake with a start.

He’d kept as quiet about it as possible but he’s losing sleep and it’s really starting to drag him down. Stiles doesn’t know if Peter or Chris know, if they’ve heard him jolting awake and gasping for breath, but they haven't mentioned anything to him about it.

The worst night so far was the nightmare he had about his father. Even if he wasn’t there when his dad got shot, had only been brought to the hospital by one of his dad’s deputies after it had happened, he’d read the report. He knows enough of the gory details to paint a vivid picture in his mind of how he thinks things went down. Reliving that in his dreams is as horrific as it comes.

He knows the pain and anguish first hand of waiting to be told news about his father as he paced the waiting room at the hospital, and it never gets easier to feel all that again like it’s brand new. No matter how much he tells himself that it’s not happening again, that it’s in the past, it’s as if someone took a serrated knife to his chest and ripped him wide open again. Leaving him wrung out and raw.

That night he cried silently for hours.

When Peter approaches him after dinner, a little over a week after their talk, Stiles is an exhausted and jittery mess.

“Sweetheart, I was hoping to talk to you about some things,” Peter starts, taking Stiles’s hand in his and leading them to the couch. Chris is in the kitchen finishing up the dishes before joining them in the living room like they usually do.

Stiles can't sit still. He can't _focus_ , and just bobs his head a bit frantically at Peter.

Peter’s frowning at him though, blue eyes roving over Stiles’ face, the ‘wolf’s nostrils flaring slightly as Peter inhales.

“Are you alright Stiles?”

It’s rare, now, that Peter would use his actual name, preferring an endearment instead, not that Stiles is complaining about them, he quite likes the sweet things Peter calls him. It snaps Stiles’s waning attention back to the man sitting next to him.

He doesn't even remember when they sat down.

The ‘ _I’m fine_ ’ is on the tip of his tongue but before the automatic lie can come tumbling out of his mouth Peter’s brows draw down and Stiles swallows heavily.

“No,” he rasps out after a beat.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Peter gently prods.

Stiles’s chest feels tight, his heart is beating frantically, and he feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff.

Does he fall? Or does he reach out for help?

He’s teetering there and it’s almost like he’s bordering on a panic attack, those aren’t unfamiliar for him, but it’s not quite the same.

Chris appears, kneeling on the floor in front of Stiles’s feet; he has both of their attention whether he wants it or not. Chris lays a hand on Stiles’s knee, gives a gentle squeeze, and Stiles’s hand is still warm where Peter is firmly holding it.

“Yes, and no,” he gets out stiltedly, his uneven breaths making it more difficult than it should be.

“Okay,” Chris answers easily, rubs Stiles’s knee comfortingly.

Peter cups Stiles’s cheek with his free hand, guiding Stiles’s gaze back to himself. “You can talk to Chris or I, we’ll always listen no matter what. Or, if you want, you can talk to someone else too.”

“Someone else?” The question is stuttered out, barely audible, but Peter is nodding like he heard it as clear as a bell.

“I wasn’t going to bring this up to you just yet, but yes, there is someone I know of, a therapist, that if you wanted to you could talk to her. About anything, about everything.”

Stiles’s eyes flutter closed and he leans into the hand on his cheek, the warmth. He nods, because words are just too difficult right now. He hadn’t realized how worked up he was about everything. How rehashing what he had had ripped the scabs off all his unseen wounds. How badly the nightmares and the lack of sleep were affecting him.

He wants more of Peter’s warmth, he feels safe when the ‘wolf is touching him like he’s precious, so with his mind spiraling, he doesn’t let himself think too deeply on his actions and just crawls into Peter’s lap like he has every right to.

Peter doesn’t bat an eye at Stiles’s forwardness, just wraps his arms around him and holds him close. It’s only a few moments after that Stiles feels a matching heat along his back and another set of arms encircling him. Peter and Chris holding him securely.

When Stiles feels like words aren’t beyond his capabilities again he just says “yeah”, and Peter doesn’t ask, just quietly whispers that he’ll make the appointment.

* * *

Doctor Morrell isn't what Stiles was expecting. She’s younger than Stiles thought she’d be, but the degrees and certifications lining the wall behind her desk are plenty impressive. She doesn’t have a notebook and pen at the ready; she doesn’t ask him how he’s feeling.

Sitting on a loveseat across from her armchair it feels like talking to an acquaintance, she gently prods him with inane questions and she answers Stiles’s in turn. They talk for almost the whole hour and it doesn’t feel like the therapy he went when he was a kid after his mother’s death. The man back then was old and wrinkled and didn’t like to listen to what Stiles was saying, when he decided to speak at all. Instead, the man would tell him how he should be feeling, how he should be processing things.

Morrell doesn’t do that. And as much as Stiles is used to talking around things about himself he finds himself dropping breadcrumb facts about his life for her. He can see the way her eyes intensify on his when he does it, like she’s cataloging all these little clues about him so she can put the puzzle together. He likes that about her, that she seems willing to do that, to get to know him at his pace and then work on the larger issues as they come.

The first session isn't mind-blowing, he’s not cured, but he feels a little lighter after talking with her for an hour, even if he didn’t once bring up the reason for the dark circles under his eyes or his overall listlessness from exhaustion.

At least the night before he got a fair amount of sleep. Peter refused to let him go after Stiles crawled into his lap, carrying Stiles to his and Chris’s bedroom and disregarding Stiles’s half-assed protests. He only let Stiles go long enough to hand over a shirt and sleep pants so Stiles could change in their ensuite. When Stiles emerged he had intended on slinking back to his own room, the embarrassment of his actions starting to needle away at him, but Peter wasn’t having any of that, taking Stiles by the hand again and leading him to the massive bed dominating the room.

Stiles knew in that moment that he could pull away. That Peter would let him go, that it was all Stiles’s choice. Instead, he let himself be led and manhandled into the center of the bed, Peter and Chris bracketing him on either side. Peter maneuvered Stiles so that he was resting his head on Peter’s chest, with Peter’s arm wrapped around his back, and then Chris scooted over until he could drape himself along Stiles’s back, spooning him.

Stiles was frozen in a moment of awkwardness, his own lack of confidence rearing its head, making him stiff and uncomfortable. Peter had whispered a soft ‘ _none of that now sweetheart_ ’ and kissed the top of Stiles’s head as Chris laid a kiss to the back of his neck and it seemed to be the magical combination to allow Stiles to let go and relax.

He melted into their embrace on a deep exhale, closing his eyes and focusing on the steady heartbeat underneath his ear. His own heart was warm and full, it was the most cared for, the most _loved_ , he had felt since the last of his family died.

It let him fall asleep easier than he had in years but it didn’t keep the nightmares away completely. Peter and Chris gentled him through them, soft touches on his back and sides, whispered reassurances in his ear. So instead of startling awake and panicking or crying until he fell into an exhausted uneasy sleep, he was able to drift back off again easier once the images in his head shifted away from the darkest of his thoughts.

Daybreak brought more cuddles and a sense of calm in their blanket cocoon. No one left the warm sheets until Stiles’s stomach started growling and Chris kissed his temple before leaving to make breakfast. The smell of cooking bacon finally got Stiles and Peter out of bed to follow after him.

Peter had made good on his promise to get Stiles the appointment with Morrell, and he also brought up what he originally meant to talk to Stiles about last night. Peter wanted to take him down to the Secretary of State so he could get his ID as well as schedule a driving test. Peter and Chris letting Stiles know that they would help him practice driving and that they would get him a car after he passed.

The generosity stunned Stiles. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – let them buy him a car. Instead, he told them about the storage unit that Jordan had which contained his mom’s Jeep and the rest of what Jordan saved from his old house. After that, it wasn’t hard for Stiles to get in touch with Jordan to set up some time to go to Morro Bay to get his things.

When Stiles’s appointment was done Chris took him out to lunch since he had taken Stiles to begin with. Peter was running errands around town. Even if the session wasn’t particularly invasive Stiles still felt slightly drained afterward and he was in a fog the whole ride to the dinner. It wasn’t until they were both seated and a menu placed directly in front of him that Stiles actually snapped out of it.

“You okay?” Chris questioned carefully while looking over his menu.

Stiles nodded and scanned the menu, quickly picking out a burger, curly fries, and a chocolate milkshake. “Just a little tired.”

“Did everything go okay? If you don’t like Dr. Morrell I’m sure Peter or I could find someone else if you wanted.”

“No, no,” Stiles reassured, “I liked her just fine. We didn’t really talk about much, but I’d like to keep seeing her.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure Peter sets it all up.”

The way these two just effortlessly cared for him was not something Stiles would get used to any time soon, but he liked the warmth in his chest every time they did.

“Thanks Chris.” Stiles gave him a small smile.

“No problem. Anything you need. Anything at all, and we’ll do it.” Chris promised.

* * *

It was a few weeks before Jordan had time off to take Stiles down to Morro Bay but it wasn’t like Stiles was short on things to do while he waited. Peter had set up additional sessions with Dr. Morrell as well as working on the legal aspects of getting Stiles his ID back and handling the issue of him running away from his foster home. Peter kept Stiles out of most of it, Stiles thinks that the ‘wolf didn’t want to upset him, and Stiles was really just grateful that he didn’t have to deal with it all alone.

On any given day Peter, Chris, or one of the pack would take it upon themselves to give him driving lessons. It wasn’t that he _didn’t_ know how to drive, per se, but it had been so many years since those first lessons with his dad that he was rusty.

Boyd was practical with his approach, having gone down to the DMV and picked up practice test booklets for Stiles to study with. Erica or Jackson would push him into a vehicle and tell him just to drive, and then proceed to be absolute _nightmares_ about correcting every little thing he did wrong in their eyes. Though, when they would inevitably get frustrated and have him pull over so they could drive back Stiles learned quickly not to take it to heart. They were _terrible_ drivers. Stiles was always left gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle the whole way until they finally parked.

Kira was the best, aside from Chris or Peter, in Stiles’ opinion. She had the perfect mix of practical application as well as quoting things from the booklets he had read that Boyd had given him. It didn’t hurt that she was as sweet as they come. She was always so upbeat and happy every time Stiles did something right. He wouldn’t have mastered parallel parking without her.

With a good grasp of the basics under his belt Stiles mentioned to Peter that his Jeep was actually a manual. Once Peter was armed with that knowledge a new car made its way over to the pack house, a sleek and shiny black Camaro. Stiles was almost afraid to _touch_ it.

He took his road test in that car though and passed with flying colors. After that Peter finally told him it was his nephew’s and that he had stolen it for the express purpose of being able to give Stiles driving lessons in it. Derek was pleased by its return, even if he was a little dumbstruck by Stiles’ hug.

With his temporary license in hand, Stiles felt like his life was getting back on track, that he really _could_ do whatever he wanted to and that in the end everything would be okay.

* * *

Chris and Peter offered to go with Stiles and Jordan down to Morro Bay to pick up his Jeep and whatever else Jordan had saved from his house but Stiles told them it was something he needed to do on his own. He had actually talked about the trip, and their offer, with Dr. Morrell. He was worried about what it would mean, closing that chapter in his life, what feeling it would bring up, and if he was ready to deal with it all this time. Essentially he had run away from it before. He grieved for his father, a bit, after the man died, but once he was on the streets he didn’t have time for those emotions anymore, not when he was trying to survive.

They talked it through a lot, and Stiles knew he was right in his decision to do it on his own, but that Morrell was also right in the fact that he had people now that he could rely on, that he could unburden himself to. So maybe he wasn’t ready to bring Peter and Chris to Morro Bay, but he knew the two ‘wolves would be there when he got back and would support him with anything.

Stiles was opening up more in his sessions with her, talking more freely about what had happened in his past. He still hadn’t told her everything, but starting with the death of his father seemed to be the easiest for him to handle right now. She also encouraged him to take this step and retrieve the items from his past, and if he felt ready for it, to maybe share it with the people of his present, of his future.

He wasn’t entirely sure if he was ready, but he was willing to try.

Jordan picked him up early on a Saturday morning; the old pickup truck that Stiles remembered the man having was replaced by a newer ruby red F150. They only stopped at a McDonald’s long enough to get a bit of breakfast before starting their drive. It would be a little over six and a half hours before they arrived in town, so Stiles twisted the dial on the radio until he found a station he knew they both liked and kept the volume down low enough so they could talk and catch up on the drive.

It was nice having this time with Jordan, even if they’ve talked or texted here and there since seeing each other again it wasn’t like it was more than a few minutes at a time since Jordan had to work so much. They talked about how Jordan ended up in Beacon Hills, how and _why_ he was in the Hale pack, apparently he was a Hellhound of all things. Which just led to Stiles asking endless questions about _that_.

Unlike how he would see the auras around other people without really having to try, with Jordan it was different, he actually had to look for it, but once he saw the fiery form surrounding the man it was like he couldn’t _unsee_ it. Stiles gave himself a momentary panic attack until he blinked and the image was just gone. Jordan, probably having sensed something was wrong like the ‘wolves seem so capable of doing had prodded at Stiles until Stiles fessed up to what was happening.

Magic, when taking werewolves and hellhounds – and who knows what else – into account, really didn’t seem that farfetched anymore. Stiles didn’t know what it could mean, neither did Jordan, but having a somewhat answer was helpful nonetheless. At least it was something that Stiles could research and ask more questions on. Jordan promised to help him out too, that if he didn’t get anywhere that Jordan would ask Talia directly.

They stopped for dinner before heading to the storage unit. Jordan had preemptively booked a hotel room close by for the night, not wanting them to make the drive back immediately since it was a bit of a way away.

Jordan rolled up the door of the unit and flicked on the interior light. Stiles’s heart was in his throat at the sight of his mother’s Jeep, carefully tucked under a protective cover within the unit.

“I tried to come down as often as I could, make sure that she’d still run. I haven't been able to get down in a month though; we might need to give her a jump.” Jordan spoke softly into the early evening air.

Stiles cleared his throat to push down the lump that was forming, “yeah, no, sounds good.”

He walked carefully into the unit, running his hand along the side of the Jeep, the cover sliding under his fingertips. He got to the front corner and gripped the cover, pulling it with him as he walked back down the side of the Jeep, carefully easing the side mirror out of its little pocket. Once the cover was off completely, dust floating in the air around him, he stood at the front of the Jeep; cover balled in his arms, and didn’t know what to do next.

Part of him thought he’d _never_ see his mother’s Jeep again. Even once he was safe at Peter and Chris’s he never thought about everything that he had left behind when he ran. And here, the biggest part of that, was right in front of him. When his dad died, he didn’t think about the house he grew up in, the photos on the wall, the Jeep they were restoring in the garage. None of that mattered when the last of his family was now six feet under. So he hadn’t let it cross his mind when he ran from Mark and Jody, it’s not like he had anything but some of his clothes when he was in their house anyway.

Now though, he could see the boxes stacked up neatly along the sides of the unit, in the back of the Jeep. He had no clue what was in them, but he was overwhelmed and excited by their presence.

“I didn’t know what to save, really. I took what I could, what I thought you would want or need. I – I hope I got everything.” Jordan was quiet and stuttering slightly over his words, but it was enough to snap Stiles out of his thoughts.

“Jordan,” Stiles breathed, “this is more than I ever thought I’d have.”

“Hey, hey, shh, it’s okay.” Jordan soothed, coming up to stand in front of Stiles, taking the cover from his hand and tossing it to the floor.

With a blink Stiles’s eyes went blurry, unfocused, and wetness trailed down his cheeks.

Jordan enveloped him in a hug, tight and protective. And Stiles just let himself fall into that embrace, comforted by a sense of home and familiarity. He didn’t sob, but the tears kept coming steadily anyways. And for as long as they did Jordan held him through it.

It was hours later that they made it back to the hotel. Once Stiles was feeling better and the tears had run their course, they had looked over the Jeep to make sure it would run, and most importantly, make the drive back to Beacon Hills. It took a bit to start it, but not nearly as bad as Stiles remembered. Jordan admitted that he had been tinkering with it on and off for years, making sure that it would at least start and run but that he hadn’t been able to do much more with it, no matter how much he wanted to.

Stiles vowed to pay him back for it but Jordan wouldn’t hear it, he refused any money and just shrugged and told him it’s what a big brother does. It got a chuckle out of Stiles, and a solemn nod of acceptance. Jordan _was_ family.

They had loaded up the Jeep with as many boxes as it could fit and left the remaining few for Jordan to put in his truck the next day. Then he had made Jordan drive him out to the cemetery so he could visit his parents. Jordan waited for him in the truck as requested and Stiles walked the path to their graves alone.

He sat between them, bittersweetly telling them about his life, at least now, and how much he missed them both. He didn’t want to dive into his past, not now. He was still too raw for that, but he told them about Chris and Peter, the pack, Jordan. How Chris had saved him and how everyone around him was so kind. How much he liked spending time with Chris and Peter and that he maybe, definitely, had a crush on both of them. How he was working on himself and getting better, but he still missed them as if it was only yesterday that they were gone. When he was done, the cemetery dark around him, his eyes were tired and irritated and he felt like he could sleep for a week he was so exhausted.

Jordan didn’t mention anything about his appearance, or how long he was out there when he finally came back to the truck, just drove them back to the hotel and told Stiles to take a shower while he went out to get their dinner.

He felt better after the hot shower, warm diner food, and whatever dumb comedy that Jordan found on the TV to watch as they ate. Once the movie was over Jordan found reruns of _Whose Line is it Anyway?_ and let the show run in the background as they settled in their beds. Stiles fell asleep to the audiences’ laughter.

The two Tylenol and the glass of water next to his bed when he woke up was a welcome relief to his aching head. After breakfast they checked out and drove back over to the unit, packing up the rest of Stiles’s stuff in Jordan’s truck and headed back home.

* * *

Erica growls lightly as Stiles smacks her hand away with the wooden spoon, not taking his eyes off the sauce bubbling away on the stove.

“Ugh,” she groans, hand clutched to her chest, “you’re such a _mom_.”

Stiles stills, whispers out a hoarse, “a what?”

“A Mom,” Erica rants, “No dessert before dinner. Eat your vegetables. Don’t forget your lunch. Don’t be late for class. Do your homework. Stop rough-housing in the house. You know, like a total Mom.”

Stiles still hasn’t recovered but the light bulb going off in Erica’s head waits for no one.

“Like, like a _pack mom_! Oh my gods, Stiles, you’re the pack mom!!”

“Am not!” is the immediate schoolyard rebuttal that makes its way past Stiles’s lips, too raw and broken to be any type of believable.

“Are too,” Erica teases back.

Stiles has finally pulled himself away from the stove, turned his body enough to look at Erica. She’s bobbing in place like she’s discovered something wonderful and is just vibrating with the knowledge.

When she gets a good look at Stiles though she stops, her eyes going a little wide.

Stiles doesn't know why he says it, he hasn’t really talked about himself like this with the rest of the pack before, only Peter, Chris, Jordan, and Dr. Morrell know some of the details, but the words are tumbling out before he can stop them. “My mom died when I was little.”

Erica freezes, for a split second, but enough for Stiles to catch it, then she’s nodding her head again, her eyes glowing golden for a moment before fondness and sadness settle in her gaze. “She must’ve been a great one,” she says softly.

Stiles nods, blinking back tears that always threaten to fall when talking about his mom, “yeah,” he whispers, “she was.”

“Because you’re a great mom too,” Erica says with a teasing smile, breaking the melancholy moment.

It startles a chuckle out of Stiles, “I’m not pack mom, Erica.”

Erica’s “you so are,” is joined by a similar chorus from the rest of the ‘wolves in the living room.

“Traitors, the whole lot of you,” Stiles calls in exasperation, “see if I let any of you have cookies now!”

“But mom,” Erica whines, extending out the word with her pleading, “they’re so good, and I already did my homework.” She bats her eyes at Stiles, bottom lip pushed out in an exaggerated pout.

“You’re ridiculous,” Stiles sighs, shaking his head fondly.

Erica bounces over and plants a smacking kiss on his cheek, “love you too mom!” and then scampers from the kitchen, her hand getting smacked _again_ as she tries to steal a cookie on her way out.

“Absurd ‘wolves,” Stiles mutters under his breath. He turns back to the stove and stirs the sauce, adjusting the flame of the burner so it simmers gently as he covers it.

His cheeks are hot and flushed, and there’s a heady warmth in his chest.

It’s ridiculous, but he loves it all the same.

* * *

Amara Duncan, Stiles decides within five minutes of meeting her, is _awesome_. First off, he kind of wants to live in her fairytale storybook worthy home. Second, she’s funny and sweet and too kind by half. Third, she has walls and walls of books all over her cottage – because yes, it’s a damn cottage in the woods, he’s just waiting for the birds to come flying in through the open windows to spontaneously decorate her hair with flowers – and he wants to read every single one of them.

When Peter told Stiles that he wanted him to meet a friend of his, a witch, Stiles wasn’t sure what to think. Peter had explained that he thought that Stiles might benefit from meeting her, that maybe there were things that she could teach him and Stiles was willing to go along with it especially after his talk with Jordan. If magic was an answer then Stiles wanted to learn more.

Peter had also told him that what Julia had done was a type of magic, that if Stiles had magic inside of him that Amara could help him learn, could teach him. Peter admitted that he was worried about telling Stiles, fearing that Stiles would react badly, but Stiles told him, and by extension Chris, what he had talked to Jordan about, the auras, when they were in Morro Bay. That regardless of anything else he wanted to learn more.

He wasn’t expecting the woman that greeted them at the door of the cottage, someone so cute and bubbly and petite. Maybe Stiles had something else in his mind when he thought of witches, but it’s not like he knew any first hand to compare to. She was almost a full head shorter than him, long dark hair with a bit of a curl to it, blue eyes, and a warm smile. She was slim and feminine and she was wearing a white sleeveless sundress with pretty blue flowers decorating it. 

She had invited them all inside and Stiles was struck speechless. Amara couldn’t be a witch; she was practically a princess right out of a Disney movie. Stiles realized that he didn’t know the first thing about witches, or really about anything to do with the supernatural no matter how long he’d been exposed to them.

Amara had bustled around while they all sat in her living room; she was fetching drinks and carrying on a conversation with Peter and Chris leaving Stiles to look around the place in wonder. By the time he tuned back into what they all were saying a cup of tea had already been placed on the table in front of him, smelling faintly of jasmine.

“Does your grandmother still run the shop downtown?” Peter was asking as he was sipping his own drink.

“Yes, of course,” Amara laughed softly, “did you expect her not to be?”

Stiles watched as a faint blush spread over Peter’s cheeks before disappearing completely.

“Well, I suppose not then.”

Chris just snorted at Peter and relaxed back into the couch, one arm thrown over the back, his fingertips gently grazing the skin on the nape of Peter’s neck.

“We’ll have to go down there before we leave, it’s been a while.”

“Yes,” Peter agreed easily, a small smile curling his lips.

“So, Stiles,” Amara starts, turning a little in his direction and startling him from where he was watching Peter and Chris, “did Peter tell you why he wanted us to meet?”

“Um, yes?” Stiles answers hesitantly, “I mean, he thinks I might have magic, and I guess with werewolves and stuff it’s not that hard to believe, but I would have thought that I would have noticed before now, you know? Like, wouldn’t I have? It just seems kind of surreal really.”

Amara’s laughter breaks Stiles’s flow of rambling words, he can't help how his cheeks heat in embarrassment and he drops his head down hoping no one can see.

Chris’s hand comes down on his leg, rubbing soothing circles there and Stiles lets himself enjoy the comforting touch.

“You’re adorable Stiles. I think we’re going to get along great, whether or not you have magic.” Amara regards him fondly.

It doesn’t take long for them to hash out the rest of the day, Amara preferring some one-on-one time with Stiles to get to know him which essentially means kicking Peter and Chris out. Stiles doesn’t mind being left along with her, he knows that Peter and Chris wouldn’t take him to someone they didn’t trust. And he can't help but be curious over all the books; his hands are practically itching with the need to touch them.

When they’re gone it only takes a nod of Amara’s head towards one of the walls of bookcases before he’s out of his seat and standing in front of it. He looks over them all, there’s so many, some are vastly older than others, while others give off a feeling in his bones that he can’t quite describe. He looks for much longer than he thought he would, the itch in his palm growing as he looks over and disregards book after book. Many of the titles he can't even read since they are in languages he doesn’t even know.

Stiles couldn’t be asked how long he spent looking, he had no clue at that moment how much time had passed since he first came over to the shelves, but finally, like it was _calling_ to him, he pulled out an aged book from the shelf. He frowned when he looked at the title, the works looking like a key smash of letters, and although the itch stopped as soon as he touched the book he was helpless as to the reason _why_. The harder he stared at the cover the more recognizable the words became _Studium iskier i ich magii_ , he gasped quietly to himself once he realized that the title was in Polish, of all things, his mother’s native tongue.

He worked out the translation of the title, as best as he could remember from what his mother had taught him of the language, _A Study of Sparks and Their Magic_.

Amara’s soft voice drew his attention away, “what’ve you found?”

Instead of answering right away Stiles walked over and sat at the end of the couch closest to her chair, tilting the cover at her, though reluctant to hand over the book completely. “This.”

The smile he got lit up her whole face. “I had suspected when you first walked in here, when you know what to look for like I do, it’s easy to see.” Her smile dimmed a little though with her next words, “You haven't had an easy time of it though, someone took advantage of you, or tried to bind you, in your past. What they did,” and here she looked downright distraught, “it almost snuffed out that spark inside of you completely.”

Stiles felt the cool wet brush burning lines on his skin like liquid fire as if it were yesterday. He’ll never forget that, no matter how out of it he was in pain. He knows now, without even having to ask, that this is what Amara is talking about. Julia did _something_ to him, and it’s about time he found out what it was and what it means.

Stiles steels himself and tells Amara what he had told Peter and Chris before about what Julia had done, the symbols, the burning, being bound to her will. How she would occasionally draw other symbols on him and how tired he was afterward. 

“Peter sent me the pictures you drew for him, he asked me to check into it, and I did, of course, but he never offered up a reason why he was asking. I didn’t know it was because of you. I’ve been out of the country for a while and didn’t even have time to tell him what I found yet.” Amara’s eyes are glistening with unshed tears and Stiles feels guilty over being the cause of it.

He doesn’t feel like he can look her in the eye anymore. It’s something he’s feared, that people would look at him differently because of what he’s been through. Even if Peter and Chris haven’t, or Jordan, knowing all they know, he wouldn’t expect the same from a virtual stranger, no matter how kind.

He must be horribly used if the way she’s so distressed is any indication. Maybe it would have been better if Julia had destroyed his spark, maybe whatever she did tainted him, made that part of him go bad.

Lost in his own twisting thoughts he misses it when Amara moves from the chair to sit next to him on the couch, taking up his hands in her own smaller ones, the book he chose resting on his lap.

“Hey, whatever you’re thinking, I can promise you that you’re wrong.” She declares softly.

“How would you know?” Stiles asks.

“The first thing you learn about magic is that it isn’t good or evil, it just _is_. Magic exists in people and nature. It can be harnessed and directed to do any number of things. But it’s the intention of the one doing the spell or wielding the magic that makes what is done a good thing or a bag thing.” She offers up a tentative smile and cups his cheek with one hand.

“And I may not have known you long but I don’t believe you have an evil bone in your body. I believe you have been through more hardships than anyone your age should have had to endure, but that only makes you stronger. You haven’t let your past destroy you yet and with that, there is always hope for something better.”

“Maybe,” Stiles hedges, still uncertain. It gets a smile out of Amara though, making him smile in return.

“So, now that I know the reason for Peter’s little mystery request, how about I explain what Julia did. And then we can talk about that book you chose.”

Stiles nods, settling into the couch, angling his body so he can see and talk to her easier.

“I don’t know what Peter told you,” she starts.

“Nothing much, really,” Stiles interrupts.

“Figures,” Amara says softly under her breath.

“Peter knows many things, but magic has never been his strong suit. Aside from me, most magic users keep their information to themselves, or within the magical community, other witches or druids or spell casters. We tend to be a pretty secretive bunch.” She looks away for a minute, tilting her head slightly in thought, “Well, I guess each group is kind of like that in a way, we keep to ourselves.”

“Makes sense,” Stiles nods.

“He suspected a binding of some kind on whatever magic you might have had and he was right. What she did to you, binding you to her will, it’s abhorrent. You said her name was Julia?”

“Yeah, Julia Baccari. Although, sometimes when we were out she’d use the name Jennifer Blake.”

“Ah,” Amara sighs, “I thought that’s who you meant. I know of her, she was a Druid, emissary for Kali’s pack, I’d heard rumors but I hoped they were wrong.”

Amara goes on to tell Stiles what she knows about Julia and Kali. Easily answering Stiles’s questions when she talks about how Druids can go dark and become Darachs, which is evidently what happened with Julia. When Stiles asks why no one stopped her Amara explains that it’s not that simple. That while there are rules some are harder to enforce than others. There are no supernatural prisons and essentially the only thing to do is gather enough evidence against a person to take to the council to seek their death. The downside is it makes whoever is trying to gather that evidence a target.

She explains that it’s not a perfect system by any means, but that the vast majority of supernaturals toe the line since the punishment is so high. It’s easy for Stiles to see how things would fall through the cracks though. How he could experience all that he did without anyone batting an eye.

Amara pulls up the symbols that Peter had sent her on a tablet and explains what each one was used for any why. That Darachs use blood and sacrifice to bend things to their wills. How Julia leashed his spark – his magic – to hers so that she could control it. The tiredness he would experience afterward was the effect of her using too much at a time and him being completely untrained. That with proper education and training that he wouldn’t feel those effects as badly or at all anymore.

When he’s worried about being tainted Amara reminds him that magic isn’t good or bad, that as a Spark he’s not one or the other, but rather it’s up to him to make the decisions on how to use his magic. That breaks off into a separate discussion on what he can even _do_ as a Spark. She gives him a few examples but finally says that what he’ll need to do first is read his book.

“My book?” Stiles asks, surprised.

“Yes, that’s the one you chose, it’s yours now.” She says gently.

When he shakes his head in confusion she continues.

“The books in here are unusual, to say the least. Each one is useful, but not all may be right for you. It’s an enchantment most all of them share, intended to guide them to their rightful owners, the way this one guided you to it. I can teach you from it, but without you as my student, it’s no use to me on its own. However, you don't need me by your side to learn and study what’s contained in its pages.”

“That’s so weird,” Stiles says when she falls silent.

Amara laughs, “it sure is. But it’s helpful too. And once you’re ready for more some other book will call to you instead.”

Amara spends some time showing him the book he chose – or rather, chose him – and Stiles asks the questions that have been burning in his mind for weeks, especially about the auras. She tells him that it’s related to how she can sense a magic user, _see_ them in a way normal people can't. She doesn’t describe it as exactly the same thing as what Stiles sees but it is close. Amara explains what each image is that he’s seen and what it means, from the wolf for the werewolves, the fox for a kitsune, the fire surrounding Jordan indicating he’s a hellhound to the grotesque wailing woman that overlaid Lydia.

Once he knows what it is, has a name to the images, it removes the fear for him. The lack of knowledge, of understanding, is what kept him wary. He asks a ton more questions about the different types of supernaturals and while she answers them all she also pulls another book from her bookshelves and hands it over to Stiles, ‘ _a bestiary_ ’ she calls it, a book about all the supernaturals that are known to the world. He has enough time to flip through some of the pages, looking over the intricate drawings and detailed handwritten descriptions before his mind is spiraling elsewhere.

Stiles asks abruptly if Amara can demonstrate some of the things that she can do as a witch. He should have been wary about the mischievous look in her eyes, but he wasn’t. Instead, he simply followed her out the back door and watched, and questioned, for hours as she showed him her control over the elements of nature, conjuring wind, water, and fire; helping plants to grow and bloom in her garden, and explaining the differences between offensive and defensive magic.

When Peter and Chris inevitably returned Stiles didn’t want to leave, Amara assured him that he was welcome any time, with or without Peter or Chris, and handed him over a piece of paper with her number on it. He only waited until he was inside Chris’s SUV before he programed the number into his phone.

“Did you have a good time,” Peter finally getting his attention as Stiles was paging through his book, the bestiary sat next to him on the seat.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, frowning at the words on the page, “I need to brush up on my Polish though.”

“Peter or Derek can help you with that, they know quite a few languages between them. I could only help if it’s French though.” Chris said, turning in his seat to look at Stiles.

“Sounds good,” Stiles agreed as they drove back to Beacon Hills in the dark.

* * *

It’s a little over a week before Stiles crawls out of his room after coming back from Amara’s house. In that time he has _devoured_ the two books she had given him and has written his own copious notes on what he’s read. He understands so much more now than he did before even if he knows there is still so much left for him to learn.

Chris, and Peter sometimes, have been visiting him in his room, prompting him to eat and sleep and shower but otherwise leaving him to his own devices. He struggled in the beginning, trying to translate the book from Polish to English, having to rely on using his phone and Google Translate or bugging Peter when he couldn’t get something right but after a while it just started to click. Words and phrases coming back to him that his mother taught him like they had never left, only having been buried in the back of his mind.

It was easier then, he’s read and reread the book on Sparks twice now, and while he hasn’t been able to actually _do_ any of the magic contained within the pages he has been able to get a handle on one important aspect, the auras. The book called it the _Sight_ , which while it may seem a little hokey, it’s accurate enough. The book explained that this Sight was unique to Sparks, allowing them to easily see the true natures of the people or supernaturals around him so that he could assess if they were threats or not.

With a better understanding, Stiles is now able to control it, easily seeing the wolves of Chris or Peter as they would come to visit with him, bringing up the image and then dismissing it with a mere thought. It eases something inside of him, to have this control over the ability, to know that it won't blindside him anymore as it did with Lydia when he first came here.

Thinking of Lydia he knows he owes her an explanation, he can't imagine it’s been fun for her to see him so terrified by her presence in a room. With that in mind, he checks the time and heads over to the main pack house, intent on making dinner for them for the first time in days.

When he comes in through the side door leading into the kitchen he catches sight of red hair and knows that now is the perfect time to talk to Lydia, especially since he doesn’t see anyone else inside. Stiles makes his way through to the living room but the minute Lydia spots him she’s already making to get up and leave again.

“No,” he calls out, halting her, “please don’t leave.”

She regards him warily, as he deserves, but sits back down in her chair.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out quickly, taking a tentative seat on the edge of a couch nearest her. “I know you’ve been avoiding me, because I’ve been avoiding you, and I’m sorry that I did that. You must have felt so unwelcome in your own home and I feel terrible, I do. You didn’t deserve that. I’m really sorry.”

Lydia nods slightly, just a shallow dip of her head. “You were scared of me.”

“I was,” Stiles agrees easily, “I’m not now.”

She tilts her head, regarding him fully, eyes assessing and calculating. “What’s changed?”

“Me,” he answers honestly, “I didn’t know what you were, what I was seeing and I was scared because of it, but Peter took me to meet Amara and I have a book now and I know things that I didn’t before and so I’m not scared anymore because I know that you’re a Banshee and what that means, even if looking at you with the Sight is hella freaky, and I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a chance like I did the others so that we could get to know each other but I didn’t realize how little I know about the supernatural and it was so over – ”

“Stiles,” Lydia says through a small laugh, “take a breath.”

He pauses and breathes in deeply before letting it out slowly. His hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck and he can't meet Lydia’s eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “I ramble.”

“So I gathered.” Her tone is amused and Stiles takes a peek up to see a smile curving her lips.

She straightens a little, smoothing down her skirt, “so that’s what freaked you out? That I’m a Banshee?”

There’s an edge of a challenge there so Stiles takes another slow breath and raises his head, he doesn’t want to be afraid of her, he isn't really, not anymore, but he wants to be truthful, he feels he owes her that much.

“It was, yeah. I’m a Spark, I guess, still getting used to what all that means, but part of it is that I have what’s called the Sight. I see, like, auras, or images, of someone’s true nature, and so when I saw the Banshee on you I didn’t know what it meant, what I was seeing. You being a Banshee isn't what freaked me out, it’s what I saw that I didn’t understand at the time that did.”

“And you’re not afraid now?” Lydia questions.

Stiles shakes his head, “No, I’m not. I can control it now, so I can see things like that when I want to instead of being blindsided by it.”

“Good,” Lydia states firmly. “I was getting rather bored of finding other places to be while you were here.”

Stiles dips his head down again, ashamed. “I really am sorry.”

“I know, I forgive you.”

He feels her sincerity and is grateful that she doesn’t hold his actions against him.

“Kira mentioned what happened after Peter and Chris left you with that night. What I do, what I am, I’m sure I didn’t make the best first impression either. You may have your Sight under control, but at times I’m still learning about my abilities.” Lydia offers softly. “I’m willing to move forward if you are.”

“I am,” Stiles agrees. Tentatively he offers, “I have a book, a bestiary, that gives information about a ton of supernatural creatures, there’s an entry on Banshees too if you ever want to read it. And I probably could also ask Amara if she has any more books.”

Lydia hums a little, “I’d like that. Peter, Chris, and even Talia have been looking for information for me but it’s been hard to come by.”

“Yeah, for sure, I’ll text Amara and ask her.” Stiles shoots her a smile which Lydia answers in kind. He sends off the text right then and when he sees the time he only has about an hour before it would be dinner time.

“I, um, I was gonna make dinner, there’s not much time before everyone is due back. But, um, we can talk later?” Stiles is nervous, even if they’ve made up for poor first impressions, it’s no reason for Lydia to immediately jump to being his friend.

“I’d like that Stiles,” Lydia says with an easy smile, and Stiles is flooded with relief over that fact.

He likes it here and he doesn’t see himself leaving any time soon, so he’d hate to be at odds with anyone in the ~~harem~~ pack.

“Great, awesome,” Stiles stutters slightly as he makes his way into the kitchen, his mouth stretched in a wide grin. Lydia just relaxes sedately in her chair, chuckling at his antics, and resumes reading her book.

* * *

It had been a few months now that Stiles has settled into his new life. While it might have been hard in the beginning for him to overcome his fears and misinformation, he now feels content. Peter and Chris have expressed that anything that may or may not happen between them is entirely up to Stiles, and while Stiles hadn’t really been thinking about it all that much since then he takes the time to ponder it now.

He has choices. Peter has been a flirt but has done nothing untoward to Stiles, while Chris has always taken a more subtle approach. Stiles has had moments where he entertained the fleeting thought of _what if_ , but he’s never really sat down to think it through.

Things could easily remain unchanged. He doesn’t _have_ to do anything. Stiles could sit them both down and tell them that he doesn’t want this and he knows without a doubt that they would respect his decision.

Stiles knows his heart though, even if he hasn’t said anything he knows that he’s had feelings for them both. That, over time, with care and patience, he’s started falling for the two men that have been his anchors through the storm. They care for him, care _about_ him, that much is crystal clear to Stiles. And while he might be hesitant and tentative to return their affections, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

Because at the crux of all of this is the fact that he wants to. For the first time, he’s found someone, two someones, who he _wants_ to be with. A part of him thought that might have been trained out of him by Brunski and Harris, that he would be broken beyond repair by what they did to him. They taught him that sex was a means to an end, that he wasn’t there to do anything but provide pleasure to someone else, that his thoughts, his enjoyment, was meaningless.

It was demeaning. Demoralizing.

He’s skirted around the issue with Dr. Morrell, though she knows enough to know that _something_ happened to color his attitude about sex and relationships. He knows he’ll need to open up with her more, talk through his issues, known and unknown, before he can really invest himself fully with Peter and Chris.

But the other part of him is a little more irrational, lonely. He wants them, simple, but true. He wants the soft touches and softer kisses. He wants to be held and cherished and _loved_. Gods, does he want to be loved. He knows that they can give that to him. And maybe it’s selfish to want that without being fully healed from his past, but he can hardly help himself anymore.

He knows what he’s going to do, what he’s already decided in his heart.

* * *

Cuddling on the couch after they leave the pack house has become commonplace and utterly domestic. Peter fully blames the boy curled up in his lap for _taming_ his damn wolf.

But when he’s like this he does feel tamed, he feels content and at ease in a way he’s never experienced before.

And he’d happily slaughter anyone who dared to try to take this from him.

Chris is at his back, an arm slung around his shoulders, the hand there working its way up and down Peter’s bicep, caressing the skin. Stiles is a warm, welcomed weight on his lap, his boy’s head resting on Peter’s shoulder as his long legs stretch over the rest of the couch.

Peter doesn’t even care what inane movie is playing in the background; his whole focus has narrowed down to the two bodies nearest him. Stiles’s steady – if slightly erratic – heartbeat, the warmth of his skin as Peter traces circles on his side – just firm enough not to tickle him – and Chris’s heat at his back, the touch of his fingertips on his arm.

It’s seductive, the way the tiniest of touches makes him want more; the way the scents of himself, of his lover – his Mate – and of Stiles all mix in the air, and coats their skin. He dips his head down, inhaling at the skin behind Stiles’s ear. The boy’s heartbeat ratchets up a notch, his breaths becoming ever so slightly labored.

Stiles is used to being scented now, but he’s still so deliciously responsive to _every single thing_ and it makes Peter’s mouth water every time he thinks about exploring that further. Like now, at this moment, when Stiles tips his head just that little bit further, granting Peter access to a place where his boy’s scent is so heavily concentrated. Peter’s lower lip drags over warm flesh, and Stiles shivers in his lap, back bowing ever so slightly in pleasure.

There’s a hint of claws on his arm now – a warning, maybe – but it doesn’t deter him, not when he’s getting high off of Stiles’s desire, the way his boy’s breath picks up, heart hammering away in his lean chest. He can feel it, the rapid-pace thudding when Stiles settles back against his chest. His tongue joins in the caress, small careful licks and firm presses of lips up Stiles’s neck, just the tiniest of tastes. Salt and skin and _Stiles_ play across his tastebuds and Peter groans a little, his hand at Stiles’s side pulling the boy down into Peter’s growing hardness.

He _wants_. Wants things that he can't even put into _words_ at the moment, head foggy on the heady arousal in the air – his, Chris’s, _Stiles’s_. Stiles tries to stifle a moan, biting it off and swallowing it back down but Peter hears it anyways.

“Sweetheart?” he whispers huskily in Stiles’s ear, voice rough.

Stiles is practically non-verbal, but he turns his head enough to look Peter in the eyes, hazy with lust but determined nonetheless. “Yes,” he gets out, barely, head bobbing a little manically.

Peter leans in, just a bit, just enough to make his intentions clear while still giving Stiles every opportunity to back out, to put a stop to things. The ball has always been in Stiles’s court; whatever his boy wants is what Peter will do.

Stiles licks his lips, nervous, glancing between Peter’s eyes and his mouth, breath hitching. He’s scared, a little, and Peter has a fleeting second to wonder if this would be Stiles’s first kiss, but then Stiles is leaning in as well, eyes fluttering shut just as their lips meet. It’s gentle, careful; the last thing Peter wants is to frighten him. Peter pulls back just a touch; Stiles giving a tiny whine before Peter leans back in. His free hand coming up to cradle Stiles’s cheek and jaw, moving him ever so slightly as Peter moves his mouth against Stiles’s.

He’s not experienced, not by a long shot, but he takes to Peter’s direction well, so very eager to please. It’s such a sweet departure from the rough, passion laden dominance that he’s used to from Chris. Peter coaxes Stiles into parting his lips, slipping his tongue inside his boy’s lush mouth, tasting him fully.

Stiles though, while he might be new to kissing, is _definitely_ skilled with his tongue. It’s downright sinful what the boy is doing to Peter. Chris has snaked his hand into Peter’s hair, tugging on the strands and riling Peter up even more. He has to break the kiss with Stiles to allow himself to catch his breath as much as Stiles. They pant together, faces still lingering close when Chris arches up to kiss at Stiles’s neck. He startles, only slightly, at the nip Chris gives him but then relaxes into the attention being paid to him.

He’s biting at his lip, even as his mouth is still slightly open as he catches his breath, he can't suppress the moan that Chris draws out of him, and gods does that make Peter want to hear _every_ noise that Stiles can make.

Chris nudges Stiles’s head over more, finally at an angle to capture Stiles’s mouth with his own. Chris’s hand slips from Peter’s hair to his neck, gripping firmly, and all Peter can do is watch as Chris _devours_ Stiles’s mouth. Chris’s other hand tangled in Stiles’s hair, holding their boy close, stealing the breath from his lungs. Stiles whines and keens high in the back of his throat and Peter is all too familiar with the tricks Chris must be using on him to draw out those sounds.

Peter uses his grip on Stiles’s hip to hold him down as Peter grinds up into his ass, showing his boy how affected he is. Stiles breaks away from Chris at that, panting out a rough ‘ _fuck_ ’ before biting down hard on his bottom lip and rolling his hips with the next grind up from Peter.

He’s reclined back against Chris’s chest, Chris having moved back to making a frankly _impressive_ mark high on the curve of Stiles’s neck. Peter thumbs at the offending bottom lip, releasing it from its toothy prison, and Stiles gazes up at him from under his lashes, looking flushed and debauched already.

“Sweetheart, you are such a little tease,” he mutters fondly, knowing that Stiles isn't necessarily being so seductive on purpose, he just _is_.

Everything screeches to a halt though. Stiles goes rigid where he was leaning back against Chris’s chest. His eyes wide and round and _fearful_ as their gaze bores into Peter’s. Sour notes fill the air, tainting the burning arousal. Stiles is panting, but it’s not out of any enjoyment, no he looks to be on the verge of a panic attack.

Obviously Peter has royally fucked up.

“Stiles,” he questions softly, trying to get Stiles to engage, to pull him back from whatever ledge he has now found himself on.

Chris looks like he’s afraid to move should it set Stiles off in some way while Stiles looks like he’d going to be ill.

It takes but a second for Peter to make a decision, gripping Stiles’s upper arms firmly, locking eyes with him again and speaking calmly.

“Stiles,” Stiles's eyes focus on his, sharpening briefly, “something was said or done that you didn’t like, but I need you to tell me what it was. Can you do that for me?”

The scent of stress, fear, and discomfort grow but Peter holds firm. He’d let Stiles go in an instant if he was offered any resistance, but so far Stiles hasn’t so much as twitched.

“Please, Stiles, I know you can tell me. You are so very brave and nothing bad will come from whatever you say.” He hates that he has to reassure him like that, that even now Stiles will still fear reprimand, but he’d do it a thousand times over if he has to until Stiles doesn’t need it anymore.

Stiles takes in a sharp breath, holds it, and then lets out a noisy exhale, but it seems to settle him, just slightly. He nods.

“Don’t call me that,” he rasps out.

“Okay, I won't, not ever again, but I need to know what it is you don’t want me to call you.” Peter agrees easily, rubbing his hands up and down Stiles’s arms before releasing him.

Stiles drops his head to his chest, breathing a bit easier now. “Tease,” is muttered so quietly that Peter almost doesn’t hear it.

“Alright. Thank you, Stiles, that was perfect sweetheart. I won't ever call you that again. Neither will Chris.” He glances up and catches Chris’s eye.

“I won't, I promise Stiles.” Chris agrees as well.

Stiles nods, but he won't lift his head back up; his hands are in his lap and he’s worrying at the hem of his shirt, twisting and pulling at it. The fear is dissipating, but the sharp pungence of embarrassment is taking its place instead.

He doesn’t want Stiles to be embarrassed, things like this were bound to happen, and it’s no one’s fault. Well, no one’s fault in this room at least. If Peter knew the culprit they wouldn’t be long for this world. For right now all he can do is have a frank and honest talk with Stiles.

Before he can start though, as he’s hesitating wanting to pull Stiles back to his chest to hold him, Stiles relaxes back into Chris, Chris falling back to the couch and slinging an arm around Stiles’s waist, Stiles now sprawled over the both of them.

“It’s so _stupid_ ,” Stiles grumbles, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Chris replies.

Stiles sighs, “I know neither of you are Theo. And it’s been _years_ , I shouldn’t still be getting upset over some offhanded comments he made about me.”

“It’s obviously affected you though,” Chris points out gently, “it doesn’t have to be anything more than an acknowledgment of that.”

Stiles pouts a little but doesn’t say anything to contradict Chris.

“Look, Peter and I know that bad things have happened to you, and you are allowed to feel about that however you want. But it’s not uncommon that because of those bad things you are going to have triggers. Peter and I can navigate them so long as we know what they are. And now we know this one. And when the next one comes up it’ll be no different than it is right now. We acknowledge that it exists, we set boundaries on it, and we move on.”

Stiles is nodding a little, and Peter chimes in a well, “Chris is absolutely right. And this doesn’t change a thing about how we feel about you, we still want you, want this, as much now as we did before.”

“I mean,” Stiles bites his lip and sighs heavily, “like, logically, I get all that. And I’ve been working on it with Morrell, but I guess I just thought that I was doing better, that I was finally ready. That what happened in the past would just stay there. And now I’m just frustrated because I was having a good time and I wanted to do more but I just ruined the mood completely with my stupid freak-out over the word ‘tease’.”

“Stiles, you _have_ been progressing with Morrell, don’t let this slight bump derail all of that. If you’re ready for a sexual relationship with Chris and I that’s fine, and if you’re not then that’s fine too. It also doesn’t have to be sexual to be intimate. Like we’ve all talked about before, whatever you want, whatever will make you happy, that’s all we’d ever ask.”

Peter continues, “And just because it’s not going to happen tonight doesn’t mean it won't happen in the future if that’s what you want. I also know that you don’t like talking, in detail, about what happened to you, but I think it might be important. If you don’t ever want to tell Chris or I, we’ll understand, but think about telling Morrell. She’s good at what she does and you seem to like her, she can help you navigate your thoughts and feelings on what happened.”

Stiles runs his hand through his hair before flopping it back into his lap. “Yeah, I know you’re right. And, and I’ll think about it. Because I want this too, with both of you. I want to have a relationship with you both, and I – I like the way you touch me, and I want more of that, I want all of it.”

“Whatever you want, Stiles, it’s yours,” Peter promises and leans in to give him a chaste kiss before curling into Chris’s side and throwing his arm across Stiles as well, the two of them holding their boy.

* * *

It took almost a month before Stiles finally brought up the issue with Dr. Morrell. He had been to see her since the ruined night but hadn’t been able to find the words to describe how he felt, why he was so frustrated, and how it caught him off guard.

He didn’t like talking about his past, not at all, even if he knew it was important to. This session though, he finally found the courage.

“When I was with Theo,” he started shakily. “I didn’t know then what he really wanted from me. I think I was in denial of all the times he’d try to hit on me or flirted with me. I didn’t, I just didn’t _see_ him like that.”

“It made you uncomfortable?” Morrell prompts.

“I mean, yeah, in a way, I guess,” Stiles agrees. “It’s not like I ever really got attention from anyone like that before. And it was so soon after my dad died, and the only person to express any kind of sexual interest in me was Mark when I was staying in their house as a foster.”

“So you blocked out Theo’s advances?”

“Yeah, I guess I did. I didn’t really take him seriously. I always thought he was joking, you know? Because when I didn’t respond or would brush it off Theo would just drop it and then it was like it never really happened to begin with.”

Stiles can’t stop fiddling with the hem of his shirt, twisting it in his fingers and then smoothing it out. He feels like he needs to be pacing for this, too much nervous energy to just sit quietly on the couch and talk this out with Dr. Morrell, but he stays seated anyways.

“But, but then he started to get more serious about it, I think, or he was just getting frustrated with me because I was so oblivious. He started being more forceful, touching me, or grabbing at me, and I would just pull away from him, and he’d be angry for like a second but then it would just drop again. He was so confusing and I just never understood him.”

Stiles sighs, dropping his head into his hands and curling up on the couch, making himself smaller. Morrell regards him carefully but doesn’t mention the way he’s retreating in on himself.

“We don’t have to talk about this right now, not if you don’t want to. These sessions are for you, Stiles, for what you want to discuss. You should know by now that I’m not going to pry.” Morrell states gently.

“I know, I do, but I want to talk about it, I _need_ to talk about it because if I don’t then things will never change, will they? They’ll never get better if I don’t work past this.”

Morrell nods, “yes, that’s true, but you’ve never wanted to talk about Theo before. So what’s changed?”

Stiles looks up then, wrapping an arm around his bent legs that are pulled tight to his chest. “I want to be better. I don’t want to keep being hung up on something this asshole said to me and having it affect my relationship now.”

“Let’s talk about that for a moment then,” Morrell redirects, “what is the relationship that it’s currently affecting?”

Stiles blushes as he thinks about Peter and Chris. They’ve been so endlessly patient with him, they always have been, really, but even more so now. It’s sweet in a way he’s never experienced before. They’ve been taking him on dates, and cuddling on the couch, and it’s been so incredibly wonderful but Stiles is still so scared that something else is going to happen again, that he’ll be _triggered_ and it will ruin the good thing he has going for him.

They told him, after that night on the couch when Stiles freaked out, that they wanted to court him properly. Stiles didn’t understand really what that meant, but it didn’t take much more than just telling them that before Peter explained what courting a Mate actually means to a ‘wolf. The fact that they both want something long term with him, that they want to do it right, as they said, it makes Stiles want to be better for the two of them. For all the effort they are putting in it only seems fair that Stiles should do the same, at least in his mind.

So as much as he doesn’t want to talk about all the shit that happened to him, he knows that he needs to. He doesn’t want to stumble blindly into something again.

“Chris and Peter are courting me,” Stiles whispers finally.

Morrell’s lips curve into a gentle smile. “That must be very exciting. I take it that they are treating you well?”

“Yes, very well. We’ve been going out on dates and taking things slow.” Stiles shakes his head and feels the frustration start to rise. “It’s just, I appreciate the hell out of the fact that they are moving at my pace and not pressuring me, but I – I want _more_ , but after what happened I’m scared it’s going to be bad again. Like I’m walking into a minefield and I have no clue when the next explosion is going to go off and I’ll get hurt.”

“What happened the last time? Was it with Peter and Chris, or before them?”

And, yeah, he didn’t really explain that yet, did he?

Stiles gives her the cliff notes version of what happened and then how he panicked when Peter called him a ‘tease’ how all he could think about at that moment was all the times Theo sneered that at him towards the last few months, how Theo was disgusted by him and how worthless it made him feel. That that was Theo’s parting words to Stiles before he sold Stiles to Julia and Kali.

> _“Shouldn’t be such a fucking tease Stiles. If you actually gave it up to me once in a while I might have a reason to keep you around.”_

Morrell sits silently for a moment, Stiles is used to the way she likes a minute to gather her thoughts, and it gives him time to calm down, to swallow down the lump in his throat.

“I can see how that would be upsetting for you. And it doesn’t matter that Peter said it in a different context because all you felt was all the times that Theo had said it to you, putting you right back into your past. But I think what’s most important now is how you handled the situation when it occurred,” Morrell states.

“What do you mean?” Stiles asks.

“Well, you could have done several things at that moment. You could have lashed out. You could have run away. You could have retreated inwards and refused to talk about it. But, Stiles, you didn’t do any of that. You were strong and brave, and you talked it out with both of them, telling them that you didn’t like what was said. You made your feelings known instead of burying them,” she advises with a note of pride in her voice.

Stiles shrugs, “I mean, I guess I did? I didn’t feel really brave at the time though,” he points out.

Morrell gives him that small gentle smile again, “it doesn’t really matter, because you did the hardest thing and that takes bravery even if you felt weak at the time. Stiles, you are making huge strides in your emotional recovery, even if at times, like then, you don’t really feel like you have, _you are_.”

“So, you want a full relationship with Peter and Chris, and honestly I think that’s wonderful. And you are aware enough to know that there may be bumps in that relationship because of the trauma you have experienced in your past. So as hard as it’s going to be, I think now is the time we really, truly, talk about everything that came before. And this is how you find out what those land mines are, so that you can acknowledge them, communicate them to your partners, and work together to avoid them for a successful relationship, exactly how you envision it to be.”

Stiles will always be forever thankful for someone who can understand him the way Morrell seems to, because she’s right, that’s exactly what he wants, and he knows that talking over everything is going to be rough, that it’s going to reopen all those wounds. In the end though? In the end, he’ll have Peter and Chris. Stiles thinks they are worth fighting for.

After his session with Morrell wraps up he goes back home and talks with Peter and Chris, explaining to them that he’s going to be rehashing the past with Morrell in more detail. That he knows it’s not going to be pleasant and it may cause him to lash out or retreat. They vow to support him in whatever way he needs.

* * *

> _"If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill, via Dr. Morrell._

* * *

It is hell for so long that Stiles almost starts to lose faith that he’ll feel better anytime soon. He’s been increasingly moody, prone to lashing out, and running away in turns. After the first week, he just decided to stay away from the pack house entirely since he doesn’t want to inflict himself on any more people then he has to. That just means that Chris and Peter bear the brunt of it all.

The panic attacks come back with a vengeance and so do his nightmares. Morrell ends up prescribing something for both even if Stiles is reluctant to take them, but as she says, he’ll have them if he needs them. Sometimes he can get back to sleep after crawling into bed with Chris and Peter and other times he doesn’t want to be touched at all.

It’s a crack-fueled emotional rollercoaster and Stiles just wants to find the exit.

He sticks with it though, explaining at length his time with Theo, Julia, Harris, Brunski, and Deucalion to Morrell and she listens and doesn’t judge and lets him cry and scream and be as sad and angry and bitter as he wants to be about the way his life so drastically changed and everything he was forced into. Three days a week he does this – intensive therapy, as she called it. And while he feels shitty more often than not, he does have some good days.

Those are the days that Peter and Chris will take him out, distract him and get him out of his own head. They go to dinners, see movies, take long walks in the preserve, cuddle on the couch, exchange chaste kisses, and reassuring touches. They dote on him and he soaks it all up and pushes away thoughts of being unworthy of it until his next session with Morrell.

Eventually, the number of good days increases, Stiles’s moods level out without the aid of Morrell’s prescriptions, and he can get through session after session without breaking down.

The wounds close, for good this time, scarring over where no one will ever see them. _Healing_.

* * *

It’s not until he looks at the calendar on his phone one day, sees that his birthday is coming up, that Stiles realizes he’s been here for almost a year.

His last birthday he was part of Deucalion’s harem.

He couldn’t be further from that now if he tried.

Stiles wants to do something, to celebrate. Things had been progressing so well with Dr. Morrell that he only sees her now once every few weeks to check-in and talk over new things in his life. She enjoys giving him tasks to accomplish as a way for him to heal. Once they got over the roughest parts of his past, once he finally told her _every horrid detail_ he was finally able to heal from it. It was slow for a long time but he can finally say that he’s happy, and he’s grateful to her for all the help she’s provided.

He’s still been taking things with Peter and Chris slowly, they’ve only just started getting more physical in the last month or so, but Stiles has felt ready for more for a while now. He knows where the land mines lay and he’s talked over it all with them. And if something should come up that they hadn’t anticipated then he knows they are all prepared to deal with it.

He’s let himself accept their love, their care. He gives his back to them in return and he’s stopped feeling guilty or unworthy of it all. Instead, Stiles soaks up their affection and praise. They spoil the ever-loving shit out of him and he _basks_ in it.

Now though, now he wants _everything_. And shouldn’t the birthday boy get just that?

* * *

Once Stiles made a mention about his nineteenth birthday coming up in a few weeks the whole pack, led by Lydia and Peter, went into planning mode.

It was more than he could have ever even thought to ask for. There was a party the weekend before his actual birthdate which had all of Peter’s and Talia’s pack in attendance. An overabundance of Stiles’s favorite foods littered tables at the Hale Mansion. Star Wars was playing on the huge TV in the basement, a game of lacrosse was happening in the backyard and the large living room was cleared of furniture for a makeshift dance floor.

Stiles bounced around the house and property joining in here and there as he wanted. Helping Boyd score a goal against Derek; watching his favorite part from whatever Star Wars movie was playing at the time; sitting down to gorge himself on pizza and mac and cheese, and dancing with Jackson, Erica, and Lydia.

When things had settled down a bit Stiles was presented with a cake, nineteen candles on top all lit and waiting for Stiles to blow them out and make a wish. He felt a little giddy, like he was a kid again, and he couldn’t wipe the broad smile off his face even if he tried.

It wasn’t much, what he wished for, just that this feeling of happiness would last, that he could have and accept the good things in his life with the people he loved – and who loved him – around him to share it all with.

Then there were presents. So many presents that Stiles was a little overwhelmed. Peter and Chris got him books on all manner of things, from fantasy novels to school texts for his GED studies and even a few old tombs on magic with a note stating “ _from Amara_ ” placed inside the front covers. The rest of the pack got him supplies for school since he had hinted that he wanted to attend college in some capacity after he got his GED as well as gift cards, games, and movies.

Jordan presented him with the keys to his Jeep, and at first, Stiles was confused because the Jeep had just been sitting untouched in the garage at Chris and Peter’s house, but then Jordan started to explain.

“It’s really a joint gift,” he said, a bit nervously, and then laughed to himself. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t notice it was missing for as long as it was.”

Stiles was really confused now and his face must have broadcast as much because Jordan just laughed softly again.

“It’s been at the shop in town for over two weeks now. We just got it back today.” Jordan clarified.

“What do you mean?” Stiles asked, the pieces slow to come together in his head.

“The Jeep was barely functional, so Talia, Derek and I decided to take it to the shop and get it fixed up for you. That way you could drive it again without any trouble.”

Stiles just stared blankly at Jordan before looking around the room and catching Derek’s reddening ears and Talia’s mischievous little smile.

“You, you all got the Jeep fixed up for me?” Stiles could barely believe what he was even saying, the words coming out hoarse and stilted.

He knew they were lucky that the Jeep made it back from Morro Bay, no matter how much Jordan had tinkered with it over the years to keep it running. The fact was that it was held together with little more than duct tape and hope.

It wasn’t until Jordan moved closer, shushing him, that Stiles realized he was crying. It was all just so much. He pulled Jordan in close, hugging him tightly while using one hand and waving in the direction of Derek and Talia to get them to come over and join in the hug as well.

The generosity of these people – _his pack, his family_ – still astounds him sometimes.

Talia pulled a reluctant looking Derek over with her and Stiles released Jordan enough to grab on to the other two as well, tears – happy tears – running down his face as he thanks them over and over again. Derek just mumbled a polite “ _you’re welcome_ ” at him all while blushing brighter through his dark scruff. Talia laughed and smiled, dropping a motherly kiss on the crown of his head, claiming that this is just what pack does and she’d happily do it again. 

Later Jordan took him outside to see the Jeep again in all its restored glory. When Stiles pops the hood all he sees is shiny chrome and sleek black. The paint job sparkles in the last of the evening sun, and the interior is clean and pristine. Stiles hops in and it starts up right away with a rumbling purr that he’s never heard before.

All he wants to do is drive.

Peter and Chris pull him out of the Jeep long enough for Stiles to thank everyone again for an amazing party and all the wonderfully unexpected gifts as Peter and Chris pack everything up into the Jeep to take home.

The three of them climb into Stiles’s Jeep, leaving Chris’s SUV in Talia’s driveway. Stiles just turns the Jeep around and leaves down the long drive until he hits the main road. He cranks the radio up louder than he normally would, finding a classic rock station, something his mom used to love listening to, and just _drives_.

It doesn’t hurt anymore when he lets himself remember her this way.

* * *

The day of his actual birthday is just for him, Peter, and Chris. Stiles knows that they plan to take him out for a nice dinner and the pack knows not to bother them unless it’s life or death. Stiles figures that Peter, at least, has figured out what Stiles wants to happen with the rest of the evening, even if Stiles hasn’t come right out and said it yet.

There’s still time. Not that Stiles has any intention of changing his mind, but he doesn’t want to go into with the directive of “okay let’s get naked and have sex”. No, he wants the romance of it all, the natural progression from dinner to home to _more_.

So, so much more.

Stiles dressed up in the nice slacks and button-down that Lydia bought him as part of his new wardrobe. Once they finally got to talking and hanging out she was not shy about telling him his clothes were ridiculous and taking it upon herself to make sure he was dressing appropriately from now on. She didn’t get rid of all his clothes, and he was ‘allowed’ to pick out comfortable things too, but he definitely got an upgrade of his whole closet.

The shirt was a denim blue with a subtle houndstooth pattern while his slacks were a light tan; he added the slim brown belt as he checked himself over in the mirror and then neatly rolled up his sleeves three-fourths of the way up his forearm. He thought he looked nice for a date at whatever fancy place Peter was bound to be bringing them to. He completed the look with the pair of brown dress shoes that he had and then went to try and tame his hair a bit in the bathroom before heading to the living room to wait for Chris and Peter.

He opted to get ready in the room that they had given to him at the very beginning, even if it was little more than extra storage for his stuff anymore. He hardly ever slept in the bed, preferring to curl up with Peter and Chris to sleep.

Chris was already waiting in the living room by the time Stiles was done fussing with his hair. The man looked so good in dark washed jeans, his boots all cleaned up for the night, and a black button-down that might as well have been painted on his body. Even more unfair was the first few buttons being undone to show a tantalizing amount of chest hair over his tanned skin.

Peter is only a few steps behind Chris, and if Stiles thought Chris looked sinful, then Peter was obviously trying to kill him. The light blue of Peter’s shirt brought out his eyes while the gray waistcoat accentuated his torso. He looked delicious and Stiles couldn’t wait until later when he was peeling his men out of their clothes.

Stiles was speechless as Peter prowled towards him, all grace and tempered violence, hooking an arm around Stiles’s waist only to pull him into Peter’s body, the ‘wolf whispering in his ear, “well sweetheart, don’t you look good enough to eat.”

Stiles shivered at the compliment, pressing himself up against Peter more firmly, and with a boldness he was lacking in months past but has been growing over time, he tilts his head towards Peter’s neck, kissing sweetly before nipping the skin teasingly.

“Don’t we have a reservation to get to?” Stiles asks innocently, pulling himself, reluctantly, from Peter’s embrace.

Peter hisses out “devil boy” as Chris chuckles at them both, grabbing the keys from the table by the door.

“We do, darling, and we’ll be late if we stay here any longer,” Chris responds easily, hand on the door handle and waiting patiently.

Stiles sidles over to Chris, pressing a chaste kiss to the man’s lips before rocking back on his heels. “Better go then, right Peter?” He throws a smirk in Peter’s direction before turning back and nodding at Chris to open the door. “I was promised the best birthday dinner I’ve ever had, wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would I?”

Peter glares at Stiles for a moment but it could only be described as fond, he knows Stiles is just riling him up, loving the little moments like this. “Of course, sweetheart,” Peter says silkily, crowding up behind Stiles as they make their way outside, hand on Stiles’s hip and gripping briefly. “And once we’re done, I think I’ll have _you_ for dessert.”

“If I don’t have you first,” Stiles throws over his shoulder and then jogs to Chris’s SUV securing the passenger seat.

He faintly hears Peter’s mumbled “cheeky brat” before Stiles closes the door on the SUV.

* * *

Watching Stiles’s progress over the last year has been nothing short of amazing for Chris. He never could have pictured what would happen with Stiles when he made the rash decision to play for him at Deucalion’s casino. He had hoped Stiles would stay, but his main concern then had just been to get Stiles out of that situation. Chris didn’t think he could live with himself if he had left him there. He would have been signing the boy’s death certificate.

The fact that Stiles is doing as well as he is now, and is as happy as he is is astounding. When Peter saved Chris from death all those years ago, when he felt the mate bond between them after surviving the bite that changed him into a wolf he thought that was it for him. That Peter was his everything. He didn’t know he had room in his heart for another, that they both did; Stiles surprised them.

And now, seeing Stiles so happy and carefree, knowing that their long courtship of him is coming to an end, that Stiles is _theirs_ , he’s almost breathless with it. He has to take a few minutes to breathe before starting the SUV and driving to the fancy and overpriced restaurant that Peter insisted on taking Stiles to for his birthday.

He and Peter both love to spoil their boy, even if Stiles is a simple creature at heart; he still takes it all with grace. Accepting every penny that Peter drops on him like it’s as easy as breathing. But times like now, the gentle teasing and affection spread between them, that’s when Stiles smells most content, most loved. And it’s the moments that Chris loves the best as well, wants to hoard them like the greediest of dragons.

He drives carefully to the restaurant, a good thirty miles outside of Beacon Hills, and listens as Stiles and Peter chatter on about whatever random topic has struck their interest this time. It’s not long before Chris is pulling up to the valet and they are climbing out and being led inside and to their reserved table.

Stiles is initially a little intimidated by the menu, something Chris had expected, he leans over and very quietly explains the dishes and points out options that he thinks Stiles will like, Peter glancing over his menu every now and then, eyes bright and happy. Stiles is relieved by the assistance and relaxes once he has an idea of what he wants to order. He doesn’t even bat an eye over the lack of prices and the assumption that it’s very expensive; Peter has rebutted enough cost-based protests over their courtship that Stiles doesn’t even bother anymore.

The conversation is light, and as always with Peter, toeing the line between flirtatious and salacious. No matter what is said or how much Peter will push and prod, they are both fully aware that anything that does or doesn’t happen is all up to Stiles.

Peter orders a bottle of wine with dinner, the waitress ignoring Stiles’s age when Peter asks for three glasses. Peter only pours him one glass during the meal though, just enough to complement the taste of his meal or so Peter claims. Neither of them has an issue if Stiles would want to drink, only that he does it responsibly, but they also want to all be consenting and sober once they get home too.

They stay long enough to share a few of the decadent desserts that are on offer before Peter is paying the bill and leaving an overly large tip for the waitress’s impeccable service. As they walk out to the valet stand, Chris’s arm around Stiles’s waist, he can tell that Stiles is slightly nervous under all of the boundless excitement that is practically radiating from him. Chris just smirks to himself, pulling Stiles closer for a brief moment to press a kiss to his temple.

Stiles gazes slightly up at him, a shy smile tugging at his lips. He doesn’t hold the look for long before he’s dropping his head down a little and smiling to himself as his cheeks pink up with blush.

Chris walks Stiles to the passenger seat of the SUV once the valet pulls it up, opening his door for him and kissing him just this side of inappropriate for the front of an upscale restaurant before ushering his breathless boy into the vehicle. He shares a smugly amused smirk with Peter as they walk over to the driver’s side. Before Peter can get in the back Chris pulls him in and kisses him deeply as well before stepping away and opening Peter’s door wider.

The devilish glint to Peter’s eyes promises payback, and Chris, well, he can't wait.

* * *

Dinner was fantastic but Stiles was really looking forward to getting home. He had been bubbling with a sort of nervously excited energy since they left earlier that evening.

They’re still talking and laughing when they finally spill into the house, kicking off their shoes and boots by the entryway with Chris closing the door after them all and locking it securely. The laughter dies in Stiles’s throat when he looks back at Peter and Chris, takes them both in again, and he can feel a blush heating his cheeks. He ducks his head, unable to meet their eyes for a brief moment, but reaches out and snags Peter’s hand in his, gently tugging the ‘wolf with him towards the bedroom.

He can’t look back, slightly embarrassed by his desire even as he’s fully willing and wanting to embrace it. Some things are just harder for him to shake. He stops inside the bedroom, halfway from the doorway to the bed, and Peter steps up fully behind him, wrapping his arms around Stiles’s middle. Stiles is carefully tugged back into Peter’s body, the heat radiating off him like a damn furnace but Stiles still shivers at the intimate contact.

Stiles hears Chris stepping a bit into the room, even if his back is to them both, Chris’s presence is undeniable. Chris is watching, waiting, Stiles knows, letting Stiles dictate how things will progress this evening. Peter, shameless in his affections, begins lightly dropping kisses to the back and side of Stiles’s neck. Stiles can’t suppress the small groan that Peter’s ministrations elicit from him, not that he really tries to.

Instead, Stiles’s head drops back onto Peter’s shoulder, giving the ‘wolf more access to the column of his neck. Chris comes around them to face Stiles, carefully cupping Stiles’s cheek until Stiles fixes his eyes to Chris’s searching gaze.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do Stiles,” Chris says softly, firmly, the true voice of reason and always more than willing to remind Stiles that everything that does or doesn’t happen is firmly in Stiles’s control.

“I know,” Stiles breathes out, already becoming breathless because of Peter’s attentions. “I want to though,” he adds after a slight pause, having to close his eyes as Peter sucks a mark on his neck just below his ear. “I want this, now, with you both.”

A rumbling sort of growl comes tumbling out of Peter, his arms tightening briefly where they hold Stiles securely to him. Peter’s hands release him only enough to then skate up his sides and over his chest. Chris leans in to kiss Stiles, sweetly, at first but deepening as Stiles opens his mouth to the man. Peter’s deft fingers make quick work of Stiles’s button-down, and Chris takes advantage, sliding a hand up from Stiles’s hip, caressing his skin in the opening Peter made for him.

It’s good, so very fucking good that Stiles’s knees go a little weak and he grips onto Chris’s hip to steady himself. Peter is unperturbed by Chris’s continued capturing of Stiles’s mouth and instead shifts Stiles’s shirt a bit to the side, off one shoulder, so he can mark Stiles’s pale skin as he pleases. Stiles moans into the kiss with Chris, the sensations lighting up his nerves almost overwhelming.

This isn't new, not really, but Stiles can't stifle the excited butterflies in his stomach because he _knows_ where this is heading, knows what he wants.

He reluctantly breaks from the kiss, using his hand on Chris’s hip to push him away, just a little, just enough to pant and try to regain the breath that Chris had so effectively stolen from his lungs. Once the lusty haze fades just a bit Stiles remembers what he wanted when he led Peter in here to begin with.

Before it was an act of terrified desperation, but even then, he hadn’t been able to get Peter’s words out of his head. They teased sinfully at his mind, and after he found comfort in this foreign place it wasn’t long before those words turned into a fantasy. One that Stiles would very much like to make a reality.

> _…But I want to make one thing perfectly clear sweetheart, if you are ever on your knees for me again it won't be because you think you have to be. It won't be because you think it’ll save you from some punishment. It’ll be because it’s something we both want, and not a second before..._

Stiles turns in Peter’s hold, the ‘wolf allowing him to move freely. Stiles meets Peter’s eyes, takes in the raw lust, want, and _love_ he finds there. Peter waits him out, doesn’t make a move to resume what he’d been previously so involved in, and Stiles can't even express how much that truly means to him. With words failing him he presses just that much closer and kisses Peter slow and carefully instead.

When he pulls away Peter’s eyes flare crimson for a moment, and then Stiles is fluidly dropping to his knees on the plush carpeting. He looks up at Peter, locking eyes with him as he trails his hands up Peter’s thighs until he reaches the ‘wolf’s belt. Peter doesn’t ask, but he does raise an eyebrow ever so slightly, just seeking the smallest of confirmations. Stiles dips his head briefly – _yes_ – and then unbuckles Peter’s belt.

As Stiles is unbuttoning Peter’s pants and pulling them down his thighs, Peter bare beneath them, he spares a moment to wonder where Chris has gone only to catch sight of him out of the corner of his eye as Chris takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Stiles’s breath hitches as he turns just enough to see Chris take himself out of his jeans, and then slowly stroking his cock as he settles in to watch.

It’s heady, being the center of their attention, but Stiles turns back to Peter, giving himself a moment to take the ‘wolf in. Peter is long, but not too thick, his cock hard and flushed red. Stiles brings his hand up to his mouth, running his tongue along his palm before taking Peter in hand. Like the rest of Peter, his cock feels warm as Stiles slowly strokes the silky skin, it’s a new experience for Stiles but one that he is finding he likes _very_ much. He squeezes the head just a bit on the upstroke and Peter groans in pleasure, Stiles’s eyes snapping up to watch Peter raptly.

Peter’s eyes are pulsing crimson, growing brighter and dimmer in a hypnotic rhythm. Stiles has to force himself to look away before he gets lost in that gaze. He takes a few moments to himself, stroking Peter idly, Peter letting him do as he pleases, before he lowers his head a bit and licks over the head of Peter’s cock.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Peter rasps out above him and it emboldens Stiles, hearing Peter be so vocal like this.

Stiles runs his tongue up and down Peter’s length, making everything slick and then taking the head into his mouth. He caresses the underside with his tongue as he bobs his head a bit, working the rest of Peter’s shaft with his hand. He takes him down a bit further each time until the head is hitting the back of his throat.

Stiles doesn’t choke or gag, rather a sort of muscle memory takes over. He knows how to do this, has had enough practice on various dildos in the past, and whereas before, remembering that time in his life would cause him to panic, he’s worked through it enough in therapy at this point to be calm and in control of the situation.

He remembers that this is his choice, that he has given consent, and that he _wants_ what is currently happening – and then some.

He takes Peter’s cock deeper into his throat, swallowing around the length, and pulling a delightful number of curses from Peter’s mouth before retreating for breath and to do it all again. Peter’s hand has made its way to Stiles’s hair, tugging just the slightest bit each time Stiles deep throats him, as if Peter can’t decide whether he wants to hold him there or pull him off.

He moans around his mouthful, the vibrations making Peter swear above him and pull his hair harder. Stiles finds he likes the bit of rougher treatment, Chris and Peter have always been so gentle with him, he likes the fact that he can make Peter lose a bit of his control, putting him at Stiles’s mercy.

It’s not long and Peter is tensing up, Stiles can feel it under the grip he has on Peter’s hip to steady himself as he takes Peter apart with his mouth and tongue.

“Stiles,” Peter starts, voice raw and strained, the hand in his hair gently carding through the strands, gripping a bit here and there in reflex as Peter, essentially pets him, “sweetheart, I’m going to come if you keep that up.”

Stiles pulls back until Peter’s cock falls from his mouth only to lean back in and lick off some of the excess precome and saliva, rasping out a “good” and then sealing his lips around Peter’s cock and sucking hard.

“God. _Fuck_!” Peter tugs on his hair, making Stiles moan at the pleasure-pain. “Yeah, sweetheart, you want to make me come?”

It’s meant to be rhetorical but Stiles manages a nod anyways. This is the most coherent that Peter has been since Stiles started.

“Jesus, look at you,” Peter is babbling now, it’s as if once he finally found words again he can't help it as they all come tumbling from his mouth.

“I fantasized about this, you know,” Peter groans as Stiles takes him deeply again, and no, he didn’t know, but it sends a shiver down his spine at the admission. “Fuck you take me so well, so good sweetheart.”

The praise washes over Stiles, hot and syrupy, he loves hearing it.

“God damn your mouth is sinful. You like it, don’t you sweetheart? Like taking my cock down your tight little throat.”

Stiles groans as Peter continues to ramble out filth. He can feel the muscles under his palm at Peter’s hip twitch and Peter, his hand running along the back of Stiles’s skull gently pulls him closer. Stiles goes with the motion, taking Peter into his throat again and swallowing. Peter holds him there and Stiles can feel the liquid heat spilling down his throat as Peter comes. He pulls back just slightly so he can take a breath and Peter finishes, salty and a bit bitter, on his tongue.

Peter’s panting as Stiles licks up the mess they’ve made, cleaning up Peter’s cock before sitting back and resting on his heels. Stiles wipes his mouth off a bit on the back of his hand and then Chris is just _there_ and hauling Stiles to his feet and into a fierce kiss.

Stiles works his shirt off, letting it fall to the ground as Chris proceeds to attempt to devour his mouth, no doubt tasting Peter on Stiles’s tongue. His fingers fumble on the small buttons of Chris’s shirt and he whines, frustrated, at being denied access to skin. He finally gets the buttons undone and is pushing Chris’s shirt hastily off his broad shoulders until it lands in a small heap behind Chris.

Chris works open Stiles’s belt buckle, Stiles gripping Chris’s shoulders and surrendering to the kiss. He’s feeling a bit lightheaded and eventually has to pull back, panting to catch his breath. Chris has efficiently worked his pants open and is sliding them down Stiles’s thighs as he bites and sucks a mark into Stiles’s neck. Stiles closes his eyes, lost to the sensations and content to let Chris lead him as needed.

He’s gently herded to the edge of the bed and reclines back at Chris’s urging. Chris finishes stripping him bare and Stiles can't help the heat that suffuses his cheeks and spreads down his chest. Chris is watching him heatedly, taking in all of Stiles’s bared skin while kicking off his pants and the rest of his clothing as well. There’s a moment where Chris just stares at him, all lust and want, and Stiles feels exposed but only in the best of ways.

The bed dips behind Stiles and when he turns his head to the side he finds Peter there, stretching out and palming his cock leisurely. With one broad hand, Peter reaches out to cup the back of Stiles’s neck and pulls him close, Stiles’s body twisting, until he can kiss him as well. Stiles has to brace his hand on Peter’s chest or risk toppling over on the ‘wolf.

He moans into the kiss, Peter putting his skilled tongue to work taking Stiles apart. Chris’s hand on Stiles’s hip helps to roll Stiles over until his body is resting alongside Peter’s. He can feel the weight of Chris behind him, feel as Chris runs his hand up and down his side, grabbing bits of flesh here and there as he explores.

Chris goes slowly, gently, but the caresses are steadily growing bolder. With a hand slipping between his cheeks and fingertips grazing over his hole, Stiles breaks his kiss with Peter with a gasp. He cranes his head back and to the side, _has to see Chris_ , his heart pounding in his chest.

Chris noses at his temple before placing a sweet kiss there, “just me darling,” he whispers to remind Stiles.

The butterflies are back, fluttering with renewed energy in his stomach, and he trembles between the two of them.

They know his hang-ups. He’s talked himself to death over them, and the reassurance allows him to relax again. It’s not that he thought it was anyone else, not really, but he can't help what was done to him in the past, the only thing he can do is acknowledge the second of misplaced fear and work past it. He gives a slight nod and then Peter is shuffling himself over to the side a bit more and tugging Stiles over with him so he’s more centered on the massive bed.

“Gonna take my time with you darling,” Chris tells him as he leans over Stiles. Stiles melts into the bed as Chris kisses him slowly. There’s an aching sweetness, a reverence, to the way that Chris handles him, it’s always been there, but Stiles welcomes the way that Chris’s hands return to their languid caresses of his skin.

Peter is curled up on Stiles’s side, spreading nipping kisses along Stiles's shoulder and he can hear the wet slide of Peter’s hand over his cock. Chris gets a hand under one of Stiles’s legs and pulls it up just a bit so Chris can maneuver himself in between Stiles’s spread legs. Stiles’s breath hitches as Chris rolls his hips down slightly into Stiles’s, he twists his head away with a groan as Chris grinds down on him.

It’s the most delicious torture Stiles thinks he’s ever experienced.

“Chris,” he groans out as the ‘wolf above him repeats the movement, sinuously slowly.

“Yeah, darling?” Chris asks, his face buried in Stiles’s neck, laving the exposed length of skin.

“Don’t –” Stiles breaks away with a moan at another roll of Chris’s hips, “– don’t tease, please.”

Chris nips at Stiles’s earlobe, “never,” he whispers, “no, I know exactly what I want to do with you. I want to open you up and then have you ride my cock. Hmm, how does that sound darling?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Stiles exclaims with a groan and a press back up into Chris’s body. “That,” he licks his lips, his mouth so dry, and turns his head back a bit so he can look up into the blue eyes of Chris. “That sounds perfect.”

Peter rolls away from Stiles’s side for a moment and Stiles can hear him rummage through a nightstand drawer. “Do you want Chris to wear a condom, sweetheart?” He asks, movements paused and waiting for Stiles’s answer.

They’ve talked about this too, before. Stiles knows that as ‘wolves they can't transmit or carry disease and that ultimately it would be Stiles’s choice, whatever he was comfortable with. Regardless of later cleanup issues, he knows that right now, he wants to feel it all, everything that Chris or Peter could give him. He breathes out a “no” and then Peter is twisting back and handing a small, almost full, bottle of lube to Chris.

Chris takes a pillow and lifts Stiles enough to put it under his hips before settling Stiles back down with a kiss. He kneels, powerful and gorgeous between Stiles’s legs, golden and sun-kissed skin bracketed by the pale cream of Stiles’s own. Stiles is practically breathless by the image they make. Peter props himself up on an elbow and leans into Stiles’s space, the blue of Peter’s eyes flashing to crimson as he gazes over him and back to Chris.

“How’d we manage to get so lucky?” He poses to Chris, not even bothering to wait for a response before turning back to Stiles’s face.

“You’re so beautiful, sweetheart, and all _ours_.” The last rumbled with a possessive growl and flare of bright red alpha eyes.

Stiles, speechless, because he was just thinking along the same lines but more about how lucky _he_ was to have them, can only nod in response.

Peter hums, satisfied it seems and dips down to kiss Stiles senseless again.

As Peter kisses him he’s no so lost to it that he misses what Chris is doing. The hands sliding up and down his inner thighs and the way he trails kisses there in their wake. The way Chris pulls him back just a bit more and then gently applying pressure to move Stiles’s legs where he wants them.

That feeling of exposure is back and with it is the heat of his flushed skin. It deepens when Chris presses a slick finger to his rim, circling the edge. He loses focus on the kiss with Chris’s touch and Peter moves away from his mouth.

“Gods you blush so pretty,” Peter comments idly, laying wet kisses down Stiles’s neck and to his chest.

“Make me want to mark up every inch of that pale skin of yours,” he continues.

Chris presses into him then and Stiles moans out at the beginnings of the stretch. Peter groans and rolls his body into Stiles’s side and Stiles can feel the press of his hardening cock against his hip and _fuck_ if that isn't hot as hell.

He cracks open his eyes, not sure when they fell closed, and looks down the length of his body so see where _both_ Chris and Peter are watching Chris’s finger disappear into Stiles’s body. His cock twitches and he whines a bit, becoming overwhelmed with their laser-focused attention.

Peter’s head turns back to him a lascivious smirk spreading across his lips, “you’re just too lovely not to watch, sweetheart.”

Another finger joins the first and Stiles keens with the momentary burn of it. He doesn’t know what to feel, it’s like when he’s done it to himself before and completely foreign at the same time. He loves it, wants more, wants _everything_ , but Chris is patient and taking his time.

Stiles doesn’t know whether to curse him, thank him or beg for more.

“I love watching the way you’re opening up for Chris.” Peter nips along his jaw, soothing the slight sting with his tongue and lips afterward. “He’s getting you nice and ready for his cock.”

Stiles groans and pants as Chris works him open and Peter laves attention to his neck, babbling huskily in Stiles’s ear. “I think he likes this part the most, you know, the prep and foreplay. He gets to take his time all while working to ramp you up until you’re mindless and begging for him to fuck you.”

Stiles could only rasp out a “Gods, yes” in agreement of Peter’s assessment.

“Oh hush you,” Chris admonished Peter while petting along Stiles’s inner walls and making him keen and moan. “You know you love it as much as I do.”

And Stiles _was_ losing his mind as Chris was stretching him open with skillful fingers. Peter chuckled a bit but didn’t disagree and then he was biting and sucking at Stiles’s nipple. Stiles threaded his fingers through Peter’s hair, flexing and gripping at the nipping bites and harsh sucks to his tender flesh. Chris took advantage of his distraction to ease another finger inside him causing Stiles to clamp down on the new intrusion.

It didn’t hurt, but it was a lot. More than Stiles had had in a long time. Peter’s growl from the tug at his hair snapped Stiles from his thoughts before they could go into places better left alone, keeping him in the moment. Chris stroked a hand down Stiles’s flank, soothing him until he could relax again. He took a deep breath and then another and another until he was melting back into the bed again.

His hand began to slide from Peter’s hair but the ‘wolf stopped his single-minded mission to leave marks all over Stiles’s chest to tell him that it was alright. Stiles was more than a little dazed, his higher brain functions completely checked out, and Peter’s eyes softened as they gazed at him before he dropped a gentle kiss on Stiles’s slightly parted lips.

In Stiles’s ear he growled, “you can pull my hair anytime you want to sweetheart.”

Stiles whimpered in response, his mind flooding with images of Peter on his knees in front of Stiles while Stiles fucks down his throat. Stiles keeping him in place with a firm grip on his dark hair. “Fuck, Peter,” he groaned out, his hand sliding back up Peter's neck and into his hair, clutching the strands.

Peter growled as Stiles pulled him back into a fierce kiss. Peter’s freehand pressed into Stiles’s hip, gripping him as hard as Stiles was pulling his hair. Stiles could practically _feel_ the bruises forming. Chris pressed another slickened finger into him and Stiles bit down on Peter’s bottom lip as a guttural moan broke free from his throat.

The hand to his cock had him gasping and releasing Peter’s lip, that little touch threatened to undo him completely. As if the hand – Chris – had known that was the case he squeezed the base of Stiles’s cock. Stiles shuttered at the tight grip staving off his orgasm, the one he wasn’t even aware was about to happen, and he whined at being denied his release.

Peter retreated a bit, Stiles’s hand gone slack and falling from his hair, and then Chris was releasing his cock and sliding up into Stiles’s space. Four thick fingers still rocking in and out from his hole, glancing off his prostate every so often causing Stiles to twitch and writhe.

“Easy darling,” Chris calmed him, gentling him through all the warring sensations.

Stiles whined again, frustrated and overwhelmed. Words were escaping him.

“It’s okay, I’ll let you come, I promise, darling.” Chris kissed his slack mouth. “But not until I’ve had you riding my cock first.” He promised with a whisper in Stiles’s ear. “You still want that, don’t you darling?”

And yes, yes Stiles did want that. But he had been so close without even knowing it and he’s a little petulant at being denied.

Not enough to put a stop to all of this though.

But enough to find words for what he wants.

“Please,” Stiles begs, arching his back and rolling his hips into the press of Chris’s fingers. Peter’s hand sneaks down to where Chris is spreading him open and he traces along Stiles’s rim, adding a new layer of sensations.

Chris stares at him patiently, a ‘wolf with all the time in the world, “please what darling?” he smirks as Stiles keens, Peter’s finger teasing his rim.

He pants, trying to reign himself in, “please,” he says again, pauses for breath, distracted by Chris's and Peter’s fingers, “please let me ride you,” he finally gets out in a breathless rush.

Chris smiles slowly and Peter pulls back, hand ghosting up Stiles’s hard cock in a dirty tease.

“Of course darling,” Chris says, sliding his hand free from Stiles’s body.

Stiles can’t stifle the whine at being so _empty_ , but Chris steals the sound from his mouth with a kiss.

It’s but a moment of practiced movements and maneuvering before Stiles is settled astride Chris’s hips, Chris’s cock sliding against Stiles’s cheeks with every breath and minute movement.

Chris grips Stiles’s hips and urges him up onto his knees a bit as Peter coats Chris’s cock with lube and positions it at Stiles’s entrance. Stiles drops down slowly on Chris’s cock, he’s restrained slightly by Chris’s hold so he doesn’t go too fast, taking too much at a time. He sinks down completely with a curse and satisfied groan, eyes fluttering shut.

Chris plants his feet flat on the bed and using his hold on Stiles’s hips works Stiles into movement, into a comfortable rhythm. Chris pushes up into him as Stiles rocks back, the slide of Chris’s cock in and out of him is downright sinful.

Stiles places his hands on Chris’s chest to balance and moves his hips with Chris’s expert direction. He loses himself for a while in the undulations, pleasure curling through his body and lighting him up from the inside out. He can feel his orgasm building again, a slow, unstoppable force gaining momentum. His breath hitches when Chris’s cock nails his prostate and he can't stop – wouldn’t stop even if he could – the vocalizations of his pleasure.

Chris is right there with him, groaning and panting to Stiles’s keens and moans. When Stiles’s eyes open again he can see Peter is there beside them, stroking his cock as he raptly watches Stiles riding Chris. The ‘wolf looks transfixed, gazing heavy with lust, and pupils blown.

It ratchets Stiles up higher, the knowledge that it’s him – them – having that effect on Peter. He wants Peter closer so he reaches out a hand and caresses Peter’s face. It’s enough to break him from his fixations and then Peter is there, kneeling at his side, pressing Stiles’s shoulder up so he sits back fully on Chris’s lap.

“There you go, sweetheart,” he murmurs to Stiles. “Put your hands back on his legs.”

Stiles follows the instructions, Chris paused in his movements as Stiles resituates himself and reaches behind him to grip at Chris’s thighs. His back is arched, knees spread by Chris’s body and the new position has Chris’s cock sliding that much deeper inside of him. It’s exquisite.

With a flex of the strong thighs under his hands Chris pushes up into him, harder than before, and Stiles cries out a curse. Chris does it over and over again, thrusting into Stiles’s body so deeply.

“Gods, sweetheart,” Peter croons at him, a wandering hand running along his side, over his chest, down his belly and teasing his cock. “You look so beautiful like this.”

Stiles can’t find words, biting at his lower lip when Peter moves closer and starts kissing his neck. “So pretty for us. So perfect.”

Stiles is a panting, moaning mess, coming undone.

He can’t maintain the new position for too much longer though, his own legs burning from exertion. Peter seems to sense this, sharing a heated look with Chris before telling Stiles, “I’m going to fuck Chris while he fucks you. What do you say, hmm, sweetheart? Do you think you’d like that?”

“Yes,” Stiles gets out on a gasp and a hard thrust from Chris below him, “yes, please, please.”

A growled-purr comes from Peter, accompanying his words, “well, who could say no when you beg so prettily.”

Stiles is lifted – by Peter and Chris – and then Peter is laying him back down on the bed with a biting kiss. He doesn’t linger long and then Chris is replacing him again, sliding back into Stiles like he never left.

Chris places one hand on the bed next to Stiles’s head while the other seeks out the hand Stiles isn't currently gripping the bedding with, threading their fingers together and rolling his hips. Chris slows down his thrusting a bit from what it was before when Stiles was on top of him but it does nothing to tamp down Stiles’s threatening orgasm. He can feel the precome dripping onto his stomach as Chris rocks into him. He’s so close.

As much as he wants to hold off until Peter delivers on his promises he’s not sure he’ll be able to at this rate.

Chris squeezes Stiles’s hand and it grounds him, he slows his pace just a bit more and it’s almost lazy in a way, decadent, like Chris could do this for _hours_. Stiles is still on the cusp but he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be tumbling headlong off a cliff like before.

Stiles can only hear Peter’s movements, hidden as he is behind Chris’s body. But Stiles can feel the way Chris jerks and trembles as Peter preps him. Chris kisses him slowly, but not without passion or desire. He licks into Stiles’s mouth and _owns_ every inch of him.

It doesn’t take Peter long and then he’s sliding into Chris with a groan, pushing Chris into Stiles as a result. Peter pulls Chris back and then thrusts harshly into him, transferring that momentum into Stiles. Chris and Stiles moan, their easy rhythm completely disrupted as Peter sets a hard and fast pace.

Stiles can't catch his breath, Chris pressed into his body by Peter’s weight they pant into each other’s mouths, abandoning kissing entirely. Stiles strengthens his hold on Chris’s hand, the other moving to grip Chris’s hip where he can feel Peter’s hand is already there. Peter uses Chris’s body as an extension of his own, moving him fluidly.

Stiles is making noises he’s never heard outside of porn before but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, the pleasure is overtaking him completely. Chris bites down on Stiles’s neck and that’s it, the wave crests and he’s coming with a keening moan between their bodies. Peter fucking Chris through the best orgasm Stiles has ever had.

Peter doesn’t even pause for a second, snapping his hips into Chris making him groan because Stiles is still clenched so tightly around the cock inside of him. When he relaxes enough that he can feel Chris moving again he’s oversensitive and whines a bit at Chris. Chris catches his eyes and understands, becoming immovable until Peter pauses. Chris moves enough so that he slips free from Stiles’s body, angling his body slightly so that he’s rutting against Stiles’s hip instead, still staying draped over top of him.

Chris buries his face in Stiles’s neck and Peter resumes fucking Chris between them. Chris’s cock slides along Stiles’s skin, wet from precome and lube. He’s still working to catch his breath, content where he is, warm and satisfied under Chris.

Eventually, Chris starts shaking on top of Stiles and groaning into Stiles’s neck. He catches Peter saying something like ‘ _yeah, that’s it baby_ ’, and then Chris bites down on him again and Stiles can feel Chris’s cock twitching against him as Chris comes.

Peter stills, running hands up and down Chris’s back, gentling him through his orgasm. Peter pulls out of him after a bit of time, enough for the shaking wracking Chris’s body to subside, and eases Chris off of Stiles so he can flop down onto the bed by his side.

Chris is lax and blissed out, eyes closed but Stiles can sense his contentment. He arches up a bit and throws an arm over Stiles’s stomach, pressing his face into Stiles’s shoulder. Then he just lays there and breathes; Stiles can feel his hot breath on his skin.

Stiles turns his head away from the overwhelmingly, frankly _adorable_ sight, to see Peter kneeled between his parted legs. There’s a wicked smirk on Peter’s lips as the ‘wolf takes in every inch of Stiles spread out before him. Stiles blushes but rakes his eyes down Peter’s body, ending at Peter’s flushed and dripping cock, surprised to see that he’s still hard.

Peter drops to his hands and knees and _prowls_ up the length of Stiles’s body until they’re face to face and Stiles can feel Peter’s breath on his lips.

“Want me to fuck you, sweetheart?” he questions seductively. “Or have you had enough for one night?”

The twitch his cock gives at that suggestion is enough of an answer for him. He’s a bit tired, a bit sore, and oversensitive, but he doesn’t think he would ever pass this up.

He did tell himself he wanted _everything_.

Stiles nods fervently and in case that wasn’t enough follows it up with a breathless, “yes, please.”

Peter hums and kisses his cheek and down to his jaw, “yes, what, sweetheart?”

Stiles groans, his cock hardening that much more, “yes, please fuck me, Peter, _please_.”

Peter growls and hitches one of Stiles’s legs up on his hip, the head of his cock teasing at his entrance where he’s open and still dripping Chris’s come. “You do beg _so very prettily_.”

With a smooth roll of his hips, Peter’s cock slides into Stiles’s body. He’s wider and a bit longer than Chris was and the extra bit of stretch is a delicious burn that has Stiles crying out. Peter doesn’t waste much time allowing Stiles to get accustomed to it before he’s pulling back and thrusting in hard.

Like with Chris, Peter sets up a hard and fast rhythm, fucking any and all sense right out of Stiles. Peter growls and groans as Stiles moans, biting at Stiles’s lips, his jaw, his neck. When Stiles gasps at Peter nailing his prostate all he gets is a wolfish grin in warning before Peter does it again and again with unwavering accuracy.

Chris’s arm tightens around Stiles’s stomach, Stiles’s cock bumping up against it and providing friction in counterpoint to Peter’s thrusting. Peter keeps hold of Stiles’s leg where it’s still hitched up on his hip, holding him that little bit more open so Peter can reach the deepest parts inside of him, all while balancing his weight on one hand next to Stiles’s head.

Stiles’s eyes flutter shut, lost as he is in the pounding of Peter’s cock against his prostate. He grips the bedding under his hands at his sides and tries to ground himself, tries to hold on just a little longer.

It’s useless though because Peter has set a pace guaranteed to drive Stiles to the brink faster than ever before. Peter fucks him like he’s trying to carve a place out for himself inside of Stiles.

“Let go, sweetheart,” Peter growls in his ear. “Come for me.”

Stiles’s hand lashes out until it finds Peter’s arm, his nails digging into Peter’s bicep. He clenches down on Peter’s cock with the force of his orgasm.

Peter keeps thrusting into him, voice broken with pants and growls as he says, “so… fucking… tight.”

Stiles is still coming as Peter thrusts hard and deep one last time before stilling. He pulls Stiles’s leg up higher, the stretch of his muscles nearly painful but quickly overrode by the wave of pleasure he’s still riding, and then Peter comes deep inside of Stiles.

Stiles is trembling, wrung out and exhausted. He must make a noise, a whine, something, because Peter is there, relaxing his grip on Stiles’s leg, petting down his flank as he eases his leg down onto the bed. Peter noses at his neck, kissing gently, reverently, and whispering soothing nonsense at Stiles. He eases out of Stiles and Stiles whimpers as the cool air hits his overheated skin. Chris’s hand squeezes at his side and then the arm is pulled out from between Stiles and Peter. Peter drops down on his elbow above Stiles, blanketing him with his warm body.

Stiles works to catch his breath as Peter continues his gentle ministrations, calming Stiles down. Stiles misses the warmth of Chris at his side but he isn't gone for long, returning to the bed with a warm washcloth.

Working together, Peter and Chris clean up Stiles, careful of his oversensitive cock and rim, before cleaning up themselves and then throwing the cloth to the floor. They arrange Stiles into the middle of the bed and Chris pulls up a blanket to cover them all.

Stiles is sleepy and beyond sated, bracketed by the two people he loves most in the world. Life, he thinks, couldn’t get much better than this.

“I love you,” Stiles finally says after long minutes of cuddling between them and re-finding his ability to speak. “l love you both,” he clarifies, in case that wasn’t abundantly obvious.

Chris, spooning Stiles from behind, arm draped over his side, gives him a squeeze, and presses a kiss to the back of his neck. “I love you too, darling.”

Peter, flat on the bed with Stiles lying on top of his chest, kisses Stiles’s forehead. “And I love you also, sweetheart.”

Stiles hums and his eyes close. He’s content to his _bones_ , and no matter what happened in his life before this he would never wish any different if it meant losing what he has now. He’s finally found the place he belongs, where he was always meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go, the Epilogue, and then this will be completed!


	5. Epilogue Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the wrap up of all the lingering loose ends and a look towards Stiles's future. I didn't fully edit this so any errors are mine. I hope you enjoyed the story! <3

It wasn’t long after Stiles’s birthday that he started buckling down on his GED studies, which were put on hold during his intensive therapy. Chris watched him with fond amusement as he went from book to book, practice test to practice test with laser focus. He went to the rest of his pack for help from time to time and with the mere suggestion Lydia practically took over his studies.

Peter, on the other hand, had been taking trips out of town with increasing frequency. Chris knew not to worry, Peter could always take care of himself, but he admits to being curious. Peter had promised he’d tell him, and Stiles both, once everything was done but for now he wanted to work alone.

Chris could take a guess at what Peter was doing. He just hopes that it doesn’t upset Stiles in any way.

It was only two months under Lydia’s strict tutelage before she declared Stiles ready to take his final exam for his GED.

Stiles passed, as if Lydia would accept anything less, with a near-perfect score. The whole pack gathered at the packhouse for a big celebration in honor of Stiles’s successes. It was there where the members of the pack, Erica and Jackson in particular, who posed the question ‘ _what’s next?_ ’

At the time Stiles had blushed and said that he wasn’t sure and even though every ‘wolf in attendance could hear the skip in his heartbeat no one called him out on the lie. Stiles, Chris knew, would tell them all once he was ready.

Erica didn’t let him off the hook entirely though, demanding that Stiles at least get some Gen Ed classes in until he decided what he wanted as his major. Really, she just wanted one more person she could complain about homework to. Stiles had agreed easily.

With the start of the semester not until the fall though, Stiles took time for himself and began traveling to Amara’s house in San Francisco several days a week. Chris had told him the first week that he was welcome to stay at her house if he wanted, knowing Amara would easily offer up her spare room, but Stiles didn’t want to sleep apart from him and Peter so Chris didn’t push the issue, only resolving himself to waiting up on the nights that Stiles got back later than normal.

There was a new excitement in Stiles’s eyes as he was learning what he could do with his Spark. Once he mastered a new trick he was eager to show it off to Peter and Chris first before the rest of their pack. Kira, especially, was constantly delighted by all the new things that Stiles was learning.

On occasions where Kira had a day off that coincided with Stiles heading to San Francisco, he would take the young Kitsune with him. Once Lydia got wind of that, she demanded – in that way of hers – that she be taken along as well.

Chris knew it was hard for Peter and Talia to find reliable instruction or books for their other supernatural pack members. And frankly, Chris is surprised it never crossed Peter’s mind to suggest Amara before, but it hadn’t, so it was nice to see a weight lifted off Peter’s shoulders – one he never really noticed before – when both Kira and Lydia came back with books of their own to study from about their origins.

* * *

It was an early summer day in June, rainy, dreary and overcast, when Stiles came to Chris and Peter looking melancholy. It was rare that Stiles looked anything but joyous and happy lately so it immediately set Chris on edge, Peter too as the ‘wolf set about fussing over Stiles and prodding their boy to divulge what was wrong.

Stiles had told them that it was the anniversary of his father’s death. That even though he and Jordan had gotten everything out of Jordan’s storage unit in Morro Bay that Stiles had never gone through any of it yet. He hadn’t been able to before.

He had led them both by the hand into the garage of the packhouse. They were damp by the time they made the walk over but no one said a word. Stiles took them over to the boxes lined up neatly along one wall of the garage and told them that, with their help, he’d like to go through it all today.

It was nothing for Chris and Peter to agree to the terms, wanting to help Stiles in any way that they could, that Stiles would welcome from them. They carried all the boxes into the packhouse and settled them on the large oversized dining table. Jackson had peered into the room for a moment, about to ask what was going on but Chris had given him a quick shake of the head. The rest of the packhouse was vacated quietly without Stiles noticing anything was amiss.

Chris, along with Peter, watched carefully as Stiles pulled a box over and took off the lid. His scent was suffused with sadness and longing, and Chris’s heart ached for him. He loved him too much to ever want to see him this sad. He pulled a chair up behind Stiles and sat down, gently easing Stiles back until he was perched on Chris’s lap, Chris wrapping his arms around his boy and looking over his shoulder as Stiles pulled out various papers, skimming them and then setting them aside.

It was quiet work. Peter took a seat next to Chris and they both just waited patiently until Stiles wanted to speak, silently supporting him through his process.

From the papers that Stiles set aside, it was clear that Jordan just grabbed everything he could without real thought to their importance. Most of it was bills or random notes that would be more at home filed away in a desk drawer than saved as the last mementos of a dead family.

Two boxes went the way of the discard pile, Peter scooping up the papers and rearranging them in a previously empty box to be disposed of at Stiles’s direction. The third box had Stiles’s heart beating faster and with a quick glance inside Chris could tell why.

Photo albums.

Stiles pulled out the one on top and sank further onto Chris’s lap, twitching slightly as if he just now realized where he was and _who_ he was sitting on.

He spread the album on the table, Peter pulling the box slightly away to give him more room, and opened the cover.

Chris watched, chin on Stiles’s shoulder, as Stiles ran a hand down the first picture set dead-center on the page, above it was Stiles’s name in an elegant cursive “Mieczysław Stilinski”, a little bit below and to the right-side written in blue crayon was “Stiles”. Underneath the picture was the title for the book, “Baby’s First Year”.

The picture though, the one Stiles couldn’t stop touching, was of a young woman with dark chestnut hair holding a tiny swaddled baby as she rests back in a hospital bed. Her cheeks flushed from exertion, Chris imagines, but gazing at the babe in her arms like he’s her whole world and she’d never been complete before that moment.

“That’s my mom,” Stiles rasps out.

Chris nods his head, nuzzling Stiles’s cheek.

“She’s beautiful Stiles,” Peter comments softly.

“Yeah,” Stiles says wetly, snuffling a little, “she really was.”

Stiles takes a deep breath, pulls his hoodie sleeve over his hand, and rubs the tears from his eyes. He turns the page once he’s gathered himself a bit. He points out each picture in the album, telling Chris and Peter who everyone else is, regaling them with little stories about the moments that were captured on film like his mother and father used to tell him when he was younger.

There are seven albums in the box, from the moment Stiles was born to when he was eight years old. Stiles goes through them all with them. Peter and Chris make little comments here and there, delighting in the stories being shared. The mood lifts from the earlier melancholy into something more bittersweet.

After the last album, Stiles neatly packs them all in the box again, taking a marker from his hoodie pocket and writing “albums” on each side. Peter takes the box from him and sets it in a new pile, one that they’ll take back to the house once they’re done.

“I know there’s not anymore,” Stiles says once they’re all packed safely away. Chris goes to question Stiles but he continues without prompting. “My mom got sick, just after I turned eight. She had kept it hidden for a while, I only found out when she starting forgetting things more frequently. Then they couldn’t hide the increasing doctor visits from me and had to sit down and tell me what was happening.”

Stiles relaxes back in Chris’s hold and takes up Peter’s hand. He closes his eyes but keeps talking.

“She forgot me in the store one day. I had to ask the cashier to call my dad because I wasn’t sure where she went, and I didn’t know her cellphone number by heart then, but I told them my dad was the new Sheriff and they called him for me. I had to sit in the office until he could get there and take me home. When we got to the house he went in first, mom was in the kitchen unpacking groceries. I remember he said: ‘ _Claudie, what happened? You left Stiles at the store._ ’ And when she turned and looked at my dad, at me, she just shook her head and asked him ‘ _What’s a Stiles?_ ’” Stiles’s voice breaks over the last bit of his tale.

Stiles shudders in Chris’s hold and he runs his hand up and down his boy’s chest to try and soothe him. Stiles uses his free hand to wipe away his tears.

“I, uh, I had run to my room, crying, because I didn’t know what was going on only that I _knew_ that my mom hadn’t recognized me at all. Dad came up almost immediately after me even though I could hear my mom asking him who that boy was running through the house. Once he got me to stop crying, once I was calm enough he started to explain what was going on. She was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, that she was forgetting things and that she wasn’t quite herself anymore.”

Chris squeezes Stiles back to his chest, his heart aching for his boy. Peter spares a look over at Chris, concern written all over his face, and Chris can see as Peter tightens his grip on Stiles’s hand in a show of support. Chris can't even imagine how hard it must have been for a young Stiles to go through this all, the agony of his mother forgetting him time and again. He can't fix it, but he can be there for Stiles, always.

“They didn’t leave me out of it after that. But the worst part of it all was the look on my mom’s face once she would come back to herself. The guilt was crushing and I tried to tell her it was okay, that I know she didn’t mean it, but I think that wore her down more than the illness.” Stiles has to wipe away more tears that threaten to fall and Chris feels helpless in the face of Stiles’s grief.

“Sweetheart,” Peter gently buts in, “you don’t have to tell us anymore if you don’t want to.”

Stiles sits up straighter on Chris’s lap and squirms just a bit to settle himself again, turning his head to look over at Peter fully. “I want to. I think I need to. Even if it hurts and it sucks to remember. I need you to know. Want you both to know.”

“We understand,” Chris says softly, pressing a kiss to the back of Stiles’s nape. Peter leans over and presses his own kiss to Stiles’s temple as well before leaning back into his chair. They wait in moments of silence for Stiles to decide what he wants to say or do next.

After a bit of Stiles carefully counting his breaths and getting himself under control, he speaks again. “It got worse after the store incident. My dad was worried about leaving me alone with her in case she forgot me again. There were a few babysitters that would come and stay with my mom and me when dad was at work but it wasn’t too long after that things got bad. When my mom would forget it was like she was a whole different person. She’d get angry and mean. She’d yell at me, at the sitter, she’d scream until dad came home to calm her down. She just didn’t understand who these strangers were in her house.”

“When she got dad’s spare gun out of the safe and threatened the sitter with it dad took her back to the doctors. They recommended that she be placed in the hospital’s care. Dad was reluctant, but I knew he couldn’t avoid it any longer. He had just barely managed to convince the girl’s parents not to press charges against my mom after pulling a gun on their daughter. From hearing the doctors talking at previous visits I knew that mom going to the hospital wasn’t a fix, that it was just a sign she was getting worse.”

Stiles sighs and slumps back into Chris’s chest, his hands idling playing with Peter’s fingers instead of holding his hand tight.

“After school I’d go and visit her until dad was done working. It was hit or miss on whether she was lucid enough to remember me. On the good days, I’d read and do homework with her until she was too tired and needed a nap. And on the bad days, I stayed out in the chair in the hallway. It was easier if I wasn’t in her direct line of sight on bad days. She’d call me names and just be so mean and even if I knew it wasn’t really her it still hurt, you know? So I just tried to stay out of her way but I didn’t want to leave her there all alone either.”

“Oh darling,” Chris sighs and holds Stiles that much closer.

“The last day,” Stiles starts and his breath hitches, voice breaking. He has to clear his throat before he can start again. “The last day, it was a good day. I had my mom back, and we sat on her bed and read for hours, and when I was getting tired, my dad was running late because there was a huge accident on one of the main roads into town, she sang to me like she used to when I was really little. I was almost asleep, resting on her side, when the alarms for the monitor started going off. I panicked because I didn’t know what was happening as nurses rushed in, one of them lifting me off the bed. They were fussing over her but it was too late, her heart had stopped and with the DNR they couldn’t revive her.”

Stiles wipes at his face again, sounding exhausted as he continues, “I think she knew,” he whispers out. “I think she knew that it was the end. I was so sad and angry at the time, and for a long while after, I had just got her back and then she died, but now, now I’m thankful that I had that day with her, that for a little while everything seemed okay.”

Peter shifts and crushes Stiles in a hug, Chris and Peter holding their boy between them. They stay like that for several long minutes until the world seems more bearable.

They eventually go through the rest of the boxes after Peter makes them all take a break for food. The mood is still somber but Stiles peppers in happier stories of his parents as they continue to sort through the paperwork. Stiles makes a happy find within the boxes, all his mother’s old cookbooks Jordan managed to save as well as some of Stiles’s more collectible comic books. But aside from those and the photo albums and some financial and estate-related documents, there wasn’t much to keep. Unbeknownst to Stiles, he had quite a bit of money sitting in a trust after his father’s death. It wasn’t the millions the Hale family had amassed over countless years, but the almost one hundred thousand dollars was plenty for the only son of middle-class parents.

Money was still a bit of an issue with Stiles, he didn’t like accepting ‘handouts’ as he called them, so Chris knew that this would put his mind at ease to have funds that were his own. Chris also knows that having Peter and him foot the bill for Stiles’s college was part of Stiles’s reluctance in attending to begin with. It’s only been with great coaxing, and Stiles’s work with Morrell, that Peter and Chris get him to accept all the presents that they like to dote on him.

“I know this is going to sound weird,” Stiles says as they carry the two boxes back to their house, chewing on his bottom lip nervously, “but I’d like you to meet them. My mom and dad. I know that – ”

Peter cuts him off before he rambles out of control, “we’d love to, sweetheart, and whenever you want we can head down.”

Stiles breathes out in relief, “thanks, for understanding.”

“Of course darling,” Chris agrees, threading their hands together.

* * *

Stiles gives himself a few weeks after the emotional day spent going through what Jordan was able to save from his former house. During that time he thinks and he plans. He has money of his own, more than he could ever think he would have at any given time, and he wants to do something with it. He wants to carve out a future for himself, to have something that’s _his_.

He knows that Chris and Peter would give him the world on a silver platter if he ever asked, but it’s wholly different to achieve something on your own. Growing up Stiles didn’t always have every whim satisfied, and more often than not, once he got a little older, his parents made him do chores to earn whatever it was he wanted that month. He’s always known the value of working hard for what you have, no matter how big or little it was.

So while he accepts his ‘wolves endlessly doting on him and accepts all the gifts with as much grace as he can, Stiles knows he wouldn’t be happy like that forever. It was part of the reason he objected so much to them paying for his college classes.

Stiles doesn’t question his intelligence, he knows he’s smart, but the thought of running a business and doing finances utter bores him to tears. What he does like, more than anything, is providing for those he cares about, and more often than not, that involves food in some way.

He’s always enjoyed cooking and it’s gone a long way to soothe him on stressed-out days to lose himself in the kitchen cooking and baking to his heart’s content. The only thing he could say he loves equally as much is the pursuit of knowledge, from the obscure to the banal.

With these thoughts swirling in his mind the plan begins to form. Now he just needs to bring it all together.

He first goes through the necessary paperwork and red tape involved with even being granted _access_ to the trust in his name. Jordan and Chris help him a lot with the paperwork but he’s yet to share his ideas on what he plans to do with the money. Chris, at least, knows that Stiles will tell him when he’s ready but he can tell that Jordan has a lot of questions that he’s just barely holding back from asking. Stiles doesn’t blame him though.

Once the money is his and his alone the next step is location.

He drives endlessly around Beacon Hills, learning the layout of the town in a way he never gave thought to before. He takes notes of the areas where people congregate and go to socialize. The ease of access to a building and parking options. Stiles scours the real estate listings and even goes so far as to talking to a few realtors to get a feel for the places that he’s seen that he likes.

It’s all moving faster and slower than he anticipated.

Stiles doesn’t want to jump the gun, he needs a solid business plan in place before he can even think about signing a lease on a space, but it gives him plenty of opportunities to daydream about his future.

In between all of this he still tries to get to Amara’s at least once a week to work on more of his magical studies. Lydia and Kira joining him whenever they can, the girls having been delighted at the resources and knowledge that Amara had on Banshees and Kitsunes.

While Stiles knows he can do the work, and fill the shop, find someone to run a register, what he really is lacking is someone to run the main part of the business. Stiles knows enough to know he doesn’t want to do the day-to-day, but still wants to maintain the sole ownership of his business. He needs a manager but the main issue is finding someone he can trust.

Also, someone who is not Chris or Peter.

Not that he wouldn’t welcome their help, but mainly because they have their own businesses as well. Chris as an arms dealer and Peter, well, technically he’s still the Left Hand of the main Hale pack and deals with any issues in the shadows, but officially he’s a lawyer, taking the cases he deems interesting or challenging and leaving the rest of the work to his small team.

It comes as a stroke of luck when Stiles is frowning down at pages and pages of sample business plan proposals that Jackson asks him what he’s doing.

Stiles is a little stilted in his explanation, mainly because he hasn’t even told Chris or Peter his plans yet, but Jackson catches the gist of what he is and isn't saying. Then he offers up the fact that he’s majoring in business and will have his bachelor’s completed at the end of the next year. Jackson, who is generally very aware of Stiles’s idiosyncrasies, just tells Stiles to let him know more once he’s ready and walks out of the room.

Stiles can barely breathe at the thought of Jackson possibly entertaining the idea of managing his meager business for him.

When Chris and Peter get home later Stiles has a meal prepared with a small assortment of baked goods and an idea threatening to burst from him the moment they all sit down to eat.

* * *

Peter can’t say he’s surprised, but the level of detail of Stiles’s plan is impressive. He knew his boy was smart, and this just proves it more and more. With Chris, Peter goes through Stiles’s plan page by page and jots down a few notes of things for Stiles to look at and research later, but overall the business plan is solid.

He offers up money, for him and Chris, to be silent partners in Stiles’s business and can tell that Stiles is hesitant to take it. In some ways, he understands Stiles’s reluctance, but in others, he just cannot. He didn’t grow up the way Stiles did, having to worry about money at all. It was never a thing for Peter growing up so as much as he tries to relate sometimes he knows he just can't and has to accept that.

That doesn’t stop him from trying to make it easier on Stiles, at least financially.

Stiles concedes to at least think about it, which will always be better than a flat refusal in Peter’s mind.

He does recommend that Stiles take classes at the culinary institute that is near Sacramento, just to get some formal training under his belt and some experience working with industrial equipment, which Peter assumes he’ll need to bake goods for a café.

This, at least, Stiles agrees to easily. Peter even gets Stiles to allow him and Chris to pay for classes since Stiles realizes he should get them completed before opening a place of his own.

Dinner devolves into Stiles excitedly researching the programs offered at the school and finding one with a focus on pastries and baking. He gets a little disheartened when he realizes that it’ll take at least a year before he can graduate from the program but Chris and Peter work to soothe him and reassure him that it’ll be that much better once he’s completed the program. It’s not like Beacon Hills is going anywhere and this also gives Jackson, who Peter saw was slated to manage the business, a chance to finish his schooling as well.

Stiles enrolls right away since classes for the program will be starting in the next few weeks.

His boy’s excitement is contagious.

Tonight has been an unexpectedly good night, and although Peter had some news of his own to share, he holds it back for now. There are still a few more things he’s waiting to hear back on anyway. Better to get it all out there at once when he knows everything.

And anyways, a flushed and beaming Stiles is just too good to pass up. He nuzzles into his neck and breathes him in deep. Stiles’s eyes are bright and shining, and before Peter can react he’s sprinting from the couch and laughing down the hall.

It’s only instinctive that both he and Chris give chase.

It’s all the better when it ends, hours later, with them all sated and panting; with sweat-slicked skin and in a tangle of limbs on their huge bed.

* * *

Stiles dives into classes, soaking up all the knowledge and new techniques like a sponge. It’s hard but so fun in the way he can create things that look so beautiful and taste so good.

His days are long with the hours at school and the commute but it’s worth it. Each step to achieving his own café and bookstore is laid out in front of him and all he has to do is check off each completed item. With Peter’s referral, he and Jackson have been working with one of Peter’s lawyers at the firm as well as a business management consultant to make sure that they iron out all the little details in Stiles’s business plan.

Stiles lets the pack know his plans and everyone is almost overwhelming with their support of his idea. Lydia demands that she decorate, giving the side-eye to Stiles’s plaid overshirt like it personally offends her. It probably does. Erica volunteers immediately to run the register, says she’s _great_ with people while smiling at him with way too many sharp teeth. Kira offers her help as well, much more sincerely than Erica.

The oddest thing about it all, after telling the pack, is that Derek shows up one day out of the blue and asks if Stiles would like a baking assistant.

It wasn’t something that Stiles had even considered, and generally when he cooks no one really helps him out, or he has to shoo people like Erica and Isaac out of the kitchen, _his_ kitchen, just to be able to get things done without their grabby hands everywhere.

Derek explains, ears a vivid red, that he loves Stiles’s cooking and while he might not be as good as Stiles he does love to cook and bake himself and would be willing to learn if Stiles wanted to teach him. Stiles laughs, since he’s still in school himself, but agrees easily and is rewarded with a small, shy, but very genuine, smile from Derek; Derek leaves without saying goodbye, or, well much of anything else, but Stiles is used to that from him.

At least he’ll have someone calm in the back with him to counter his frenetic energy.

* * *

Whatever has been taking Peter out of town seems to be winding down. Chris has observed that he’s been home each night for the past few months, whereas before he would be out of town for a week at a time at least twice a month.

Tonight, Peter takes time to prepare them all dinner, and it’s reminiscent of the time Stiles did this a few months ago, that same heavy seriousness in the air of important topics to be discussed. Normally that’s not a bad thing; they’ve had plenty of important discussions since Stiles arrived and throughout their relationship and all of Stiles’s therapy. It’s not _that_ scary to be open and honest with one’s partners, not after all the work they’ve all done building a solid foundation for their relationship. But that doesn’t stop Peter from smelling nervous, no matter how composed he looks on the outside.

It makes Chris feel a little on edge. Peter is rarely nervous, but he can scent it easily enough in the air as Peter moves about the kitchen. It makes Chris want to ask. To poke and prod at whatever it is that Peter _isn't_ saying. Stiles is due to arrive in the next half an hour though, there’s no sense in talking about whatever it is until he gets home, no matter how curious Chris is.

Instead, he goes into the kitchen and wraps his arms around Peter’s waist, holding him to his chest and nuzzling at this throat. He lets himself indulge in the thick column of Peter’s neck, nipping, licking, and kissing the flesh under his mouth. He doesn’t go too far with it, content to just have Peter in his arms, relaxing in increments as he stirs the carbonara in the pan.

“Whatever it is, it’ll be okay,” Chris whispers in Peter’s ear.

Peter sighs and nods, “I think it’s good, I just hope Stiles does as well.”

“We’ll get through it like we do everything else, together,” Chris states firmly.

Chris holds on a little longer until Peter needs to move around the kitchen more to finish dinner, then Chris helps set the table before sitting and waiting for Stiles to arrive in the living room.

Dinner is delicious; Peter is no slouch in the kitchen even if Stiles took over the majority of the cooking since he came here. Stiles, oblivious to Peter’s tension and excited about his latest project, dives into telling them all about his work that day at school.

When the meal and conversation are winding down Peter clears his throat and Chris lays a hand on his leg under the table in silent support.

“I wanted to let you both know that I’ve wrapped up the business I was working on out of town.”

Stiles finishes chewing the last bite of his breadstick before speaking, “I was wondering what you were doing, I just assumed lawyer stuff or stuff for Talia.”

Peter nods. “In a way, it was both. But that’s not entirely the whole story.”

“So,” Stiles draws out, narrowing his eyes slightly at Peter, “are you going to tell us what it was? Or are we meant to guess? Or is it like super-secret Left Hand pack stuff we’re not allowed to know?”

Peter chuckles a bit at that but shakes his head. “No sweetheart. You’re allowed to know. I just hope you won't be upset at what I’ve been up to is all.”

Stiles’s eyes get a little bit narrower at that, he’s wary, and Chris can't really blame him. It’s not like Peter is being very straightforward about this. Chris had an idea before of what Peter might have been up to, but he’s never asked, preferring to wait until a moment like this where Peter is ready to tell them instead. He knows Peter though, and the ‘wolf _hates_ loose ends.

Stiles, well, he came with a _lot_ of loose ends.

Peter wouldn’t be a very good Left Hand if he didn’t take care of them. Never mind the fact that Stiles never explicitly asked him to do so.

Peter has a right to feel nervous about Stiles’s reaction. Chris can't say he even knows for sure how he’ll react, given what Chris suspects. Chris senses that Stiles is losing what little patience he possesses so Chris nudges Peter to talk.

“I’ve been following up on some things in your past.” Peter opens with, and Chris would facepalm if he weren't trying to be neutral and supportive.

As suspected Stiles doesn't seem to like this, getting defensive. “What _things_ in my past, Peter?”

“I wanted to see if there was anything I could do, any way to prevent the people that hurt you from hurting others,” Peter replies evenly.

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” Stiles comes back with sharply. “I didn’t tell you everything that happened to me so that you could go out and avenge me. I _never_ asked for that. And you can dress it up however you like but _I know you,_ Peter, that was the basis of your motivation.”

Peter, for his credit, does look a touch ashamed, because he knows as well as Chris does that Stiles is right. Peter is a lot of things, both good and bad, but he doesn’t go after people in the hopes of preventing future harm, he seeks to wreak vengeance on only those who hurt people he cares about. And Chris and Stiles are at the very top of that short list.

“This,” Peter clears his throat and steadily meets Stiles’s steely gaze, “this is true, Stiles. I couldn’t stand that those who hurt you so much were allowed to get away with it. I couldn’t. And you may be mad at me for it but I won’t apologize for eliminating those I deemed threats to you. No matter how distant they actually are. I just hope you give me the chance to fully explain what I’ve done before you pass judgment.”

Stiles huffs but he doesn’t pull away from the hand Peter tentatively sets on his own on the tabletop, the ‘wolf needing that grounding touch in the face of an angry lover, angry _mate_.

“Fine,” Stiles bites out, but it’s lacking a lot of heat, even though Stiles still smells plenty angry. “What did you do then?”

Peter releases a long breath and begins, “I checked in with Jordan on your former foster family. I know you gave Jordan your statement ages ago and I wanted to see what the progress was, if I needed to step in.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at that but says nothing and Peter continues.

“It turns out that Jordan’s and the Sheriff’s Department in Morro Bay, that their combined investigation uncovered a slew of boys who had once been wards of the Stewart’s. Many of whom also came forward to give statements. When the DA filed charges against the couple ultimately Mark took a plea deal in light of all the evidence that was stacked against him and the fact that his own wife was willing to assist the prosecutor’s office in return for a suspended sentence. Apparently, she couldn’t deal with his ‘illness’ anymore.”

“Really?” Stiles asks, the slightest of tremors in his voice.

“Yes, sweetheart. Your statement got them all investigating so they could find the others. I know Jordan was going to tell you but he was trying to respect the fact that you asked him not to tell you unless you had to appear in court.” Peter says softly as he grips Stiles’s hand.

Chris stands and quickly clears the table, setting the dishes in the sink for later before shooing Peter and Stiles to the living room. If this was what Peter was starting with, Chris could only imagine what else he has to say, and he’d frankly rather be able to hold Stiles if need be.

Chris tugs Stiles down in his lap and Peter sits next to him on the couch, bringing Stiles’s legs over his lap and holding him steady.

Stiles’s scent is evening out with contentment even if there are a few sour notes left behind from anger and anxiety. Chris knows this isn't easy for Stiles to relive, in any capacity, but he and Peter will always be there for him no matter what.

“Good,” Stiles breathes, “that’s good. He was a bastard.”

“He was indeed,” Chris agrees and presses a small kiss to Stiles’s temple.

“What else?” Stiles asks after a minute.

“I went to LA,” Peter says and Stiles freezes in Chris’s arms. Chris runs a hand up and down Stiles’s side until he relaxes again, then Peter continues.

“Whatever pack Theo had is dead or scattered. I talked to the alpha of the territory and there was a fight between them and Theo’s pack not long after you had left. The alpha killed Theo and another – Donovan – before the rest fled. The Herrera pack was relatively friendly when I met them, they told me that they tried to settle in the area peacefully but Theo forced the fight and lost. I don’t really care if that’s what really happened, it’s not like the Hale pack wants LA as its territory anyway.”

“So Theo and Donovan are really dead?” Stiles asks tentatively.

Peter nods and Chris can feel Stiles’s sigh of relief at his confirmation.

“Julia?” Stiles prompts Peter.

“I went to the council for Julia, giving them all the evidence I had gathered on what Julia and Kali were up to in various territories. How they had attacked packs attempting to take them over or drain magical resources of territories that they had come across. How Julia had turned Darach.” Peter grips Stiles’s legs tighter, staring off into the middle distance.

“I didn’t know at the time that it was them where there was an attack on our Nemeton. I believe it was that last spell that Julia was using you for before she turned you over to Brunski and Harris. They were attempting to harness the Nemeton’s power for themselves but it backfired. Deaton, Talia’s emissary had a stronger claim to the Nemeton, and Julia, Darach and stolen power or not, could not usurp that claim. What she did wasn’t without consequence though, but that’s long since been dealt with.”

Chris and Stiles were watching Peter avidly. Chris remembers what happened, what Peter isn’t saying, and there really was no way of knowing at the time that Julia was enslaving another magic-user to boost her own powers. Chris knows that that’s not what Peter is focusing on though. He knows that Peter is caught up in the fact that Stiles was so close, a slave to Julia’s will, and that no one knew at the time. They can’t change the past though, no matter how much they wish otherwise.

What happened is done and passed now. There’s only moving forward.

“I, I remember being so out of it the last time she used my magic. I think I slept for days or something and then she was just done with me.” Stiles states stiltedly.

Stiles looks back and forth at Chris and Peter, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth and the scent of guilt growing in the air around them.

“Did,” he can’t meet Peter’s eyes anymore, dropping them down as he plays with the edge of his shirt, “did I cause something bad? I knew what she was doing wasn’t right, I knew that. But did anyone get hurt because of me?”

Peter cups Stiles’s cheek, gently bringing Stiles's face up so Peter can look him in the eyes. Chris squeezes around Stiles’s middle in a show of comfort and support as Peter speaks.

“Stiles, sweetheart, what Julia did, what happened is all because of _her_. You did nothing wrong. You were bound to her and could not act against her. You are not guilty for her actions while she was _using_ you.” Peter says firmly.

Stiles nods, a little shakily. “Rationally I know that. Morrell would tell me the same thing, and so would Amara, but sometimes it’s hard to accept it. I know what I felt when I was with her and Kali. After a while, it wasn’t worth it to fight anymore. I just –”

Chris cuts Stiles off, “you feel guilty, I can understand that. But you shouldn’t. You did what you had to do to survive. You told us before that you would feel ill or be in pain for attempting to resist her. You saved yourself from that pain, like anyone would try to, but that still doesn’t mean that you supported her actions, that you were complicit in her crimes. You were her victim, just like anyone else she hurt before, during, and after you.”

“Chris is right, sweetheart,” Peter says gently.

Stiles blows out a long breath, sinking his weight back into Chris’s hold. “Yeah, I know you’re right. It just might take me a bit to believe it fully.”

“Take all the time you need darling,” Chris whispers in Stiles’s ear.

“What happened to them then? You went to the council?” Stiles asks Peter.

“The council was aware of what Julia had been doing, having received multiple reports from other packs as well as Deaton’s and Talia’s report of what happened here, though we didn’t know at the time who was attacking the Nemeton. Julia was captured and questioned by the council some months after and the council executed her for turning Darach and her crimes against other peaceful packs. Kali went feral not long after Julia was killed and the council had to put her down or risk exposure of the supernatural.”

“Jesus,” Stiles hisses.

“For Brunski and Harris, I enlisted Jordan’s help in opening an investigation on them. It eventually caught the attention of an FBI Agent who had been working on busting a sex and human trafficking ring and Brunski and Harris were a part of that. With the information Jordan was able to gather and turn over to Agent Fredrick the agent was able to make their case to their supervisors and round up all of the suspects. Jordan is still monitoring the case but indictments were being handed down, and it looks like both of them will be spending several decades in prison. Especially since they were caught with young men and women at their facility.”

“You and Jordan have obviously been busy under our noses,” Stiles admonishes gently.

“Yes, well, I wanted to make sure you were safe. Jordan happened to wholeheartedly agree with me on that.” Peter huffs.

Stiles leans forward and presses a light kiss to Peter’s lips, “you’re a good Alpha,” before snuggling back into Chris’s arms.

Chris kisses Stiles’s temple and tugs him tighter to his chest.

“There’s only Deucalion left,” Stiles leads.

“That took a bit more time,” Peter says warily. Chris raises an eyebrow at him, out of Stiles’s line of sight. Deucalion is not a 'wolf to be trifled with, even indirectly. He’s called the Demon Wolf for a reason, his title has been earned through blood, violence, and death.

“What did you do?” Chris asks, beating Stiles to the question.

“I spread misinformation and lies,” Peter smirks. When Chris raises a brow Peter starts to explain.

“I used informants that I have in the area to spread rumors and misinformation to Ennis. Showing how Deucalion was bankrupting their pack. It wasn’t even wholly untrue, but it would have taken at least a decade before they actually ran out of money. And Ennis is as greedy as they come. He’s never cared about following Deuc’s lead so long as the money kept flowing into his accounts. So I made it look like that wouldn’t be happening anymore and it was Ennis’s breaking point. He challenged Deucalion for control of the pack and while I heard that he put up an admiral fight ultimately he lost. Although not before fatally wounding Deucalion in the process. Ennis wasn’t able to heal from his injuries quickly enough to save his life so they both died. The rest of the packs on the outskirts of Vegas ended up forming treaties and are working together to manage Vegas as a whole.”

“So the humans are in prison or going to prison and the rest are all dead?” Stiles asks.

Peter hums and nods, “essentially, yes.”

“I – I don’t even know what to say to that.” Stiles stutters.

Peter takes Stiles’s hand in his and holds his gaze, an earnest expression overtaking his features, softening him, “I wanted to ensure your safety, above all else. _I had to_. I had to know that should anything happen that the world is as safe as I could make it for you. That you wouldn’t have to fear the monsters from your past coming after you.”

Stiles nods, chewing on his bottom lip for a bit before speaking. “I appreciate that, I do. I don’t think I would have taken it well if you had told me when it was happening, even if part of me wishes you hadn’t kept it a secret this long. I understand why you did though. I think more than anything I just want to put it all behind me, behind _us_.”

“Sounds good sweetheart,” Peter says as he pulls Stiles into a hug.

Chris hears Stiles whisper ‘ _I love you_ ’ in Peter’s ear and Peter responding in kind. Not that he truly doubted otherwise, but Chris knows everything will be okay.

He reaches his arms out and wraps them around Peter as well, holding Stiles in the middle between them, and whispering his own ‘ _I love yous_ ’ to the two of them.

* * *

It takes time but eventually Stiles finishes his schooling and with Jackson, and occasionally Chris and Peter’s advice, he locates the perfect location downtown to open his shop. He’s been practicing the new techniques that he’s been learning at the culinary institute as well as his mother’s recipes on the pack for a while now, much to their increasing delight. He can’t wait until he can get the place opened and start baking in his new kitchen.

Lydia gently forces her way into the design of the space once the lease on the shop is signed and before he knows it the raw empty space has been completely overhauled. He was skeptical at first of allowing Lydia to basically have free rein, but he needn’t have worried. She managed to pull out all of his dreams and fantasies of making a cozy café bookstore into a reality.

There are scattered two- and four-seat tables amongst oversized couches and plush chairs. The two side walls are covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves with library ladders granting access to even the highest of shelves. Books of every type fill the shelves, all marked with prices for those that wish to purchase them, or they are welcome to sit and read while they eat. The main counter is sleek dark wood, a contrast to the glass-front display cases housed within. The register is all modern technology and easy to use and there’s even a framed blackboard for writing out the daily specials. A state of the art coffee machine is along the back wall as well as two blenders to mix up seasonal fruit smoothies as ordered.

The kitchen in the back is a stainless steel and completely modern departure from the cozy homey vibe of the front of the shop. The lights are bright in contrast to the dimmed natural light bulbs used out front. There are neatly stacked rows of mixing bowls and pans, drawers of utensils, and all brand new commercial-grade appliances. The walk-in fridge and freezer have shelves just waiting for ingredients to be stacked upon them.

To the side of the kitchen is a hallway, which also goes out to the front of the shop, which leads to the bathroom, a storage room, and two small offices. In the storage room, Lydia has even placed a stack of lockers along one wall for employees. Desks and computers have been set up in the offices for Stiles and Jackson to use.

Overall, when Lydia finally _allows_ him back into his own shop, Stiles is completely speechless.

He doesn’t even feel embarrassed about the tears he sheds or the huge hug he gives her, lifting her and spinning her around. Not that long ago this was all just a dream, a wisp of a thought, and now thanks to her and everyone else who has helped, it’s a reality.

The last piece is the sign.

Erica, Kira, and Isaac end up volunteering to work for him while they don’t have class, and Stiles and Jackson get them all trained up on the register system as well as the coffee machine. Stiles insists on a pack test run to make sure everything is working well before they announce the grand opening to the rest of Beacon Hills. The whole of the Hale pack is more than happy to indulge in the process, enjoying the free baked treats and coffees for their time and efforts.

With everything as ready as it can be Stiles sets the grand opening date and he, Chris, and Peter, as well as the rest of the pack, take to the streets to hand out fliers of the announcement to promote business.

The first weeks are far from easy, there are a lot of early mornings and long nights for Stiles but he’s so happy that the exhaustion barely registers. It’s like the whole of the town shows up in that first month, seeking to try the next new thing but then slowly Stiles, via Erica and Kira’s reporting, starts to see regulars emerging from the flood of people. At first, the usual, safe, pastries, and baked goods are the easy favorites but as more and more people try the Polish delicacies that Stiles puts out the more they are being sold out before the shop closes in the early evening.

There’s not a big market on the books that are for sale, but more often than not if someone sits down to read a book and stays for a while, they end up buying it before heading out. Jackson rants about not being pleased with the numbers but Stiles just waves him off, he likes the option and the ambiance it creates rather than being worried about selling all the books like a regular book retailer.

Derek, silent and brooding as he might be, is a huge help to Stiles in the kitchen. He does whatever Stiles asks of him, within reason of course, and is always eager to learn something new, even if he is quiet about it. Derek’s calm energy helps to tone down Stiles’s frenetic nature. They’re a good balance.

When six months have passed they’ve hit their stride. They aren’t wildly successful and raking in money hand over fist, but that was never Stiles’s goal. They can pay all their bills on time, pay their employees, and still have money in the bank at the end of the month and that’s all Stiles really wanted. He gets to go to work doing something he loves and can feel immensely proud of, the little bit of financial security and independence doesn’t hurt either.

As Stiles takes a small break for himself, confident of Derek’s command of the kitchen, he ventures out to the front of the shop and takes up residence in the oversized chocolate brown chair in the corner – one he likes to think of as _his_ – and surveys the shop. It’s quiet right now, many people at work or in school but some of the regulars are scattered around, reading and eating leisurely. Soft instrumental music plays overhead like a lullaby, and Stiles just sits and sips the sugary caffeinated perfection that Erica whipped up for him.

It seems like so long ago now since Stiles was in a dirty Vegas casino, beaten and bare, being offered up as a prize in a poker hand like he wasn’t a human being. Stiles knows that he can't change the past, and he still distantly mourns the loss of his father, but through all the hardships that Stiles had to endure it brought him here, to this moment. The silver lining to everything in his past is the love that he has now, the family and friends.

One day, maybe soon, he’d like to take the Mating bites from Chris and Peter. He can already feel the Mating Bond between them even if he hasn’t said anything to anyone aside from Amara. The bite would be a physical representation of that bond and would also strengthen it. He can’t get married to either of them since they are already married to each other, but he imagines that it wouldn’t be too hard to have a commitment ceremony if Stiles decided he wanted to go that route as well.

They’re already his, and he’s one hundred percent theirs.

Stiles ponders the future and misses Chris and Peter entering the shop until they are each perched separately on the arms of the chair, leaning in to drop a kiss on his temple and cheek. Stiles basks in their closeness, happy to have them stop by for the few hours until Stiles is done with his day.

He chats with them for a bit, catching up, until he has to go back into the kitchen and finish up. He knows they’ll find a couch or a table, get a drink or two and talk or read until Stiles is done and they all head home together. Stiles never could have imagined he’d be so wildly content with something so utter domestic, but he completely is.

This is his life now. Stiles owns his own business, he’s a survivor, he’s a Spark. Stiles also has two amazing and loving partners in his life as well as a found family of two packs. He’s come a long way and the future looks so bright it’s almost blinding.


	6. Epilogue Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to give a little backstory on how Peter became an alpha and the creation of the pack but it just never seemed to fit right in the main story, so this is what I have :)
> 
> Also some mood boards and banners I made of the pack too :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Srebro is Polish for ‘Silver’  
> And also, I took some liberties with dialog from TW S02E01

See, if you wanted the story on how it all happened you had to ask Chris. To this day Chris is convinced that Peter doesn’t know what really happened that night in the preserve, but Chris couldn’t forget it if he tried. And to be fair, Peter will even admit that things were a little fuzzy then, too hyped up on instinct and adrenaline to think about anything besides saving Chris.

When Chris first met Peter it was all part of a carefully orchestrated plan by his father, Gerard. Chris’s task was simple, watch the Hale pack until he could find a way to infiltrate them and then learn information so that they would have the ‘evidence’ to bring them to justice.

Well, that’s how Gerard told it to Chris at least.

After watching the Hale pack for months, learning their movements, seeing who they interacted with, and every mundane day-to-day life task that they did it became increasingly clear to Chris that they were a peaceful pack. There was nothing to warrant a Hunter investigation. No ‘evidence’ to gather that would justify the kinds of things that Gerard accused them of at length.

He kept on it though, this was his first true assignment since becoming of age, it was his test of worthiness.

Chris only wanted to make his family proud.

Peter liked to take his nieces and nephew to the library after school on Wednesdays, and after months of nightly debriefs to his father of the pack’s activities it was decided that the library would be where Chris would first make his approach. He had been seen, purposely, by Peter a number of times already just quietly reading at a table as Peter took the kids around to gather books for the week ahead.

Gerard had told Chris to use every advantage, no matter how disgusted he might feel about it.

But when he walked over to Peter that day and finally introduced himself – Christopher Srebro* – the last thing that Chris felt was disgusted.

Instead, Peter was polite and charming, even if Chris could tell he was a bit wary about the situation. He knew it was Peter’s instincts, he wouldn’t make a good Left-Hand if he wasn’t cautious by nature. The kids quietly went around the library in search of their books as Peter led Chris over to a small seating area in a corner and they just talked for hours.

It became a weekly thing after that first time and then evolved into meetings without the kids for coffee or lunch and then dinners and nights out at clubs in nearby cities.

Gerard was pleased and pissed in turns, happy to have Chris making inroads into the pack, especially with the Left-Hand, but agitated that it was dragging on and taking forever and that no matter how much time Chris spent with Peter he didn’t _learn_ a damn thing of importance about the pack in general.

He never got physical with Peter, he couldn’t stomach the thought of doing that with him when everything about their _relationship_ was a lie. Not that they were dating or anything, but sometimes that was a very blurry line when they were slowly grinding against each other on the dance floor of a darkened club.

Chris had made his mind up about the Hales ages ago, before he even met Peter, but he couldn’t get Gerard to see reason. To see that there was nothing there to find.

And Chris, all Chris really wanted to do was to be _with_ Peter in every way.

He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with his mark, but it happened all the same.

After seven months of zero information to report Gerard finally lost it on Chris. He was already drunk when Chris came home late from spending the day in San Francisco with Peter and Gerard just laid into Chris. Telling him how much of a worthless son and Hunter he was, how he wasn’t worthy of the family name, that maybe he’d just call Kate home and send her in to get the information that they needed so they could finally end the Hales once and for all.

Even when Chris tried to fight back, telling Gerard that there was _nothing_ to find since the Hales had not done anything wrong, he realized how his father truly felt.

_“They’re animals! Monsters! Every single one of them and I don’t care if they are seemingly harmless – begging for their life with the promise that they will never, ever hurt anyone. Or some desperate, lost soul with no idea what they're getting into. We find them. We kill them. We kill them all!”_

It was a slap in the face to how his mother had raised him to honor, respect, and live by the Code. Hunters were meant to be the police, not makeshift judge, jury, and executioners. She’d only been gone a few years but she was the one who taught him everything he knew, and now, now he could see how Gerard was trying to twist that all to suit his own bigotry.

Chris was grateful when Gerard finally passed out for the night.

As was Gerard’s way he never remembered what he was ranting about the night before, too blackout drunk to have coherent memories. Chris had taken a day to figure out what he was going to do before coming to the conclusion that he had to tell Peter. There was a very real threat on an innocent pack – on _Peter’s_ pack – and Chris would be damned if he was just going to watch Gerard try to murder them all from the sidelines.

After he worked up the nerve to call Peter and have him meet him at the diner in the next town he was expecting the worst. He picked a public place so that Peter would have to rein in his reactions to the news but he also didn’t want to seem threatening in any way by making Peter meet him somewhere alone.

In the end, it was laughably easy to tell Peter, mostly because Peter greatly suspected something was up when he first caught Chris’s scent back before Chris introduced himself in the library.

_“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me? Confront me over it?”_

_“So I could lose my advantage? That wouldn’t be very smart, Christopher, you know that much I’m sure.”_

The harder part of the conversation was the sinking feeling in Chris’s gut over _losing_ Peter. He knew there would be no way they could have something real, not after everything else was built upon lies and deceit. And he _hated_ that part of him that still wanted it anyway. Because how could he even ask something like that? How could he look Peter in the eye and say ‘ _so I know my dad was planning to kill your whole family and I’m glad we got that out into the open so it won't happen, but, want to date?_ ’, it just didn’t seem a very reasonable thing to do.

Walking away from the diner Chris had resigned himself to never seeing Peter again. He resolutely tried to box up all his feelings and shove them into a corner of his mind never to be opened again.

It worked about as well as you would think it did.

A few weeks after that meeting Chris got a call from Peter asking if he could finally take Chris out to a proper dinner now. And for the longest moment, Chris was speechless. He agreed, it was a second chance he knew he probably didn’t deserve and he would always regret not taking. It never once mattered to Chris that Peter was a werewolf, that wasn’t how his mother raised him. Being a different species, according to her, was the same as having a different eye color, or skin tone. It didn’t make you worse or better than anyone else, it only made people unique in their own way.

They started dating and Chris just fed whatever bogus ‘intel’ that Peter told him to Gerard and life moved on.

Gerard was frustrated but he hadn’t made mention of any changes in plans, still working under the ruse of gathering ‘evidence’ and Chris was still acting as the only connection they had to the pack.

In late January Chris got a text at night from Peter to meet him in the preserve. It wasn’t really all that unusual for them to meet there, just normally Chris would have more than an hour’s notice. Driving out to the preserve entrance to park Chris only frowned at his phone; Peter had never answered his text back asking why he wanted to meet him now.

With his phone, a flashlight, and a knife tucked into his boot (like always) Chris hiked out to the coordinates that Peter had sent him.

He had only just made it to the empty clearing, turning around in a small circle and looking into the trees for any sign of Peter when a shot rang out. The bullet impacted his stomach, ripping all the way through his body, making him stumble and fall to his knees, one hand pressed to his belly in a futile attempt to slow the blood flow.

Chris watched in dawning horror as Gerard stepped out from the trees, gun still raised in his hand.

_“I figured it out. All the times you’ve been sneaking off with that_ dog _. It sure didn’t take much to get you out here, are you panting after his ass that badly Chris? Or just that willing to bend over and take it like a bitch from him? Is that it?”_

_“You fucking shot me! Are you insane? I need a hospital and I have no idea what you are talking about right now!”_

_“Do not lie to me!”_ Gerard waved a phone around with his other hand. _“I’ve seen all the messages. You think you two are so smart, don’t you? Think that you were playing me for a fool. We’ll see who the fool really is after tonight. I just had to make sure you were out of my way before I pay the rest of the Hales a little visit.”_

Chris had tried to crawl away, tried to get up and move, but every time he did pain flared in every direction from his stomach and robbed him of breath. He could only follow Gerard with his eyes as the man walked a large circle around Chris, skirting the tree line. As Chris squinted his eyes in the sparse moonlight he barely saw the sandy-ash that was falling from Gerard’s hand. A hand he kept refilling from his pocket.

The pain dulled his brain, but eventually, it clicked. Mountain Ash.

Even if Chris was able to call for help from the Hales, from Peter, no one would be able to get inside the circle to reach him.

He was going to die out here, bleeding out from a gunshot wound from his own _father_.

Chris was losing too much blood as it was, he didn’t even remember Gerard leaving him, or whatever foul parting words were sneered in his direction. All he knew was that if he was going to die he didn’t want to die alone. And that he had to warn the Hales.

Peter was going to be so upset with him.

Since he still had his phone he carefully scrolled through the contacts until he found Talia’s number. After telling Peter all about Gerard and what Chris was supposed to be doing Peter had made it a point that he had to tell Talia too, himself. He had and Talia had given her number to him then in case there was an emergency.

He thinks this counts as one.

Talia, blessedly, picks up after the first ring. Chris tells her briefly what happened and asks him to send Peter to where he is and that he needs help getting back. He doesn’t have the heart to burden her with his impending death, there’s nothing she could do about it even if she was here.

He just wants to see Peter one last time. He can’t die without telling Peter that he loves him. And Chris knows that’s the shittiest thing he could possibly do, but he _needs_ Peter to know.

Chris loses time after he ends the call, only coming back to consciousness to the sounds of Peter growling and snarling at the Mountain Ash barrier. He tries to get Peter to stop, to realize it’s no use, but Peter won't listen to him, instead raging and clawing and pounding against the blue-flaring wall.

_“I love you”_ Chris finally says, knowing that no matter what Peter will hear him. He’s just so tired now, and cold. Colder than he’s ever been before. He’s shivering and he wishes that Peter was closer so that he could leech some of the heat from his body. He’d tried to move closer to the barrier, tried to get close enough to break the line but the clearing is deceptively larger than he expected and each inch feels like miles away.

He knows he won't make it to the line before he bleeds out. Gerard must have nicked something important for there to be this much blood, his clothes and back are soaked in it.

_“Don’t – don’t you fucking call Talia and have her tell me to come out here just so I can watch you die. You don’t get to do this to me, Christopher. You hear? You don’t!”_

Chris can’t see Peter’s face well enough in the low light, but he can hear the waver in his voice, knows he’s crying. He didn’t want to ever make Peter cry.

_“I love you”_ he whispers, because right now, at the end of things, it’s the only important thing he can say. The last truth of his life.

Peter screams and curses and _refuses_ to say it back, but it’s okay, Chris already knows. He’s known for a while and suspects that Peter knew the same about him. Peter doesn’t have to say it, but Chris needed to.

Peter continues to push against the barrier, steadily, the blue-white-purple light flaring around him. Aside from the bit of moon overhead, it’s the only light in the clearing. Chris watches, entranced, that even now Peter refuses to give up.

He watches as Peter’s eyes burn golden.

Flicker red.

The barrier twitches and Peter gains the tiniest bit on it.

It must be a trick of the light, because Peter’s eyes shift, deepening from their golden hue into a bright crimson.

Time seems to stand still, Peter flexing against the barrier, eyes flaring Alpha red, and then after a beat, the line fails and the barrier crashes away and Peter is on his knees at Chris’s side, panting like he ran a whole marathon in minutes.

Whatever Peter just did, Chris has never heard about it before.

_“I’m here, I’m here now and I’ll get you out of here, to the hospital, and you’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”_

Chris’s hand finds its way to Peter’s cheek, smearing it with blood. Even if Peter ran all the way to Chris’s car and floored it to the hospital it’s already too late. He’s not even sure he could stand the pain of Peter _moving_ him, let alone being jostled at full werewolf speed through the preserve.

But, Peter’s eyes haven’t stopped burning red.

He never would have asked for it before. He was fine with being human. But right now, all he wants to do is live to see tomorrow. So if there is even the _slightest_ chance, he’ll take it.

_“Bite me”_

And Peter, no matter how confused he is, how obviously worried he is, and already planning how to get Chris to safety, he doesn’t hesitate. Not for a second. He just leans down to Chris’s neck, tugs his collar a bit away, and bites down hard enough to break the skin at the base where his neck and shoulder meet.

It feels like nothing and everything. There’s the immediate pain of course, and then a burning sensation radiating from the bite and rushing through his veins. He’s so focused on that sensation that he misses Peter picking him up and taking off in the direction of Chris’s car. He only has half a mind to wrap one of his arms around Peter’s neck to keep his head from bouncing around like a bobblehead at the convoluted way Peter is holding him and trying to keep pressure on his stomach and back at the same time to minimize blood loss.

Well, _more_ blood loss.

Somehow they make it back to his car and then to the veterinary clinic of all places. Chris is carried inside and Dr. Deaton is there and just gets to work patching up Chris’s back and stomach. Stitching things back together while Chris finally lets the pain render him unconscious.

* * *

The long and short of it all is that Peter became an Alpha through sheer force of his will when he found his mate on the brink of death and trapped in Mountain Ash. The elevation in status from Beta to Alpha and steely-focused determination allowed him the strength to break through the barrier and save Chris.

The bite took, even more rapidly than normal, working to heal Chris the second Peter dug his fangs into Chris’s neck. If it hadn’t, Chris never would have made it out of the preserve alive. As it was he ended up getting patched up by Deaton, who he later found out was Talia’s emissary, and then was brought back to the Hale house and slept for a week straight to recover.

Peter and Talia had talked during that time and to keep his new status a secret Peter had called on Amara for some way to hide the fact that he was now an Alpha from everyone else. Amara ended up infusing a ring with her magic as a talisman for Peter to wear and while wearing it he would essentially _be_ a Beta again. It was a mimic of Chris’s Beta status, from senses to strength, even the color of eyes while in shift. With the ring removed and not touching any of Peter’s skin, Peter would have full access to his Alpha abilities again.

The only thing it didn’t affect was Peter’s heightened instincts, his drive for a pack that was his own. Chris’s presence as Peter’s mate and Beta helped, considerably, but it was always a _need_ in the back of Peter’s mind.

After the dust settled Peter and Chris took time away from Talia’s pack to locate Gerard. He was driven from Beacon Hills by Talia after his failed attempt to burn their house down the same night he left Chris for dead in the preserve. Chris’s phone call to Talia had saved everyone.

Once they found Gerard they wasted no time, taking him out with extreme prejudice. Chris made a few calls to the Argent branch still in France to make sure that Kate was watched over and raised in the way of their late mother and _not_ like Gerard. He was lucky that his mother had already placed Kate with her sister after she had gotten sick, much to the annoyance of Gerard at the time.

With the safety of the pack secured, they went home. They got a bit of property for themselves and had a house built. They were content to be a pack of two.

* * *

**Backstory on how Peter gets a Pack**

* * *

Peter knew this was coming the minute he heard his sister’s BMW turn into the long driveway to the house he and Chris shared. With a heavy sigh, he clicked his laptop closed and left the sanctuary of his office to meet her arrival on his front porch. Chris was out of town on business, it was probably the only reason Talia had waited so long to do this because it’s been a long time coming.

They’ve been sniping and clawing at each other over the better part of the last month, but even before then this confrontation has been building momentum for _years_. The untimely inclusion of a feral alpha in Hale territory has only served to exacerbate tensions.

Even now, with his sister so close to his den, he feels his hackles rise up unbidden. His control has been less than perfect lately and it chafes, he’s never been this out of control, not even when he was a pup, and he doesn’t know what to do to make it better. In a wistful sort of way, he misses how things used to be.

Now he has to fight his own instincts tooth and nail so that he’s not _actively_ challenging Talia’s alpha authority at every turn. Inactively, and unconsciously though? Well, that’s why he’s been in self-isolation from the pack for the better part of six weeks.

Had things have gone differently in the past though he would have lost Christopher. And that is a potential reality he refuses to acknowledge. He loves that man more than Chris probably even knows, he would give him the world at his feet, and he would never regret his actions to save him.

Even if it costs him his family pack.

He’s twitchy and uneasy, wanting to pace the length of the porch, but he doesn’t allow himself to do so. Instead, he fists his hands at his sides and can't hold back as his eyes bleed crimson as Talia exits her car and slowly walks the last few feet to the bottom of the steps. Her eyes flare red, an instinctual response to his outward aggression.

He doesn’t mean to, is the thing, and at least Talia knows this. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed is Talia’s endless patience and understanding. She never takes any slight or challenge to her authority to heart, she never calls him out over it either.

What she does do is stride up the steps like she owns the places and flicks him in the nose.

He flinches away from her and gawks; completely incredulous over the fact that she just did that. Like he was nothing more than an unruly pup.

Unorthodox methods aside, it has the intended effect, the red haze from his vision fades, the tightness in his shoulders lessens and he flexes his hands to release the tension there.

“Better now?” Talia asks, the beginning of a smile tugging her lips.

Peter lets out a slow exhale, dropping his eyes and takes a second to take stock of himself. He is, better, the energy he was holding from being riled up about her coming here is gone, and more than anything he’s just a little tired.

“Yeah, Tally, I’m better.”

“Good,” she claps her hands together and nods to the door, “Going to invite me inside now? Or would you rather we sat out here and talked?”

He thinks he could handle it, her in his den, it’s his sister, he’s known and loved her all his life, has looked up to her. She’s always relied on him, believed in him, and put her trust in him and he’s only ever done the same in return.

But with an alternative option, one designed to make him feel more in control, less intruded upon, he can't stop himself from taking it. Peter could deal with inviting Talia inside, but this is so much easier.

He gestures to the porch swing off and they each take a seat, side by side, angled so they can talk better. Talia draws up a leg to her chest, resting her chin on her knee, and here she looks every bit the small town girl that she really isn't, not anymore.

Talia Hale is an alpha of one of the largest – or largest allowed by the council – packs of the west coast. She’s the mayor of Beacon Hills, an influential member of this community as well as the supernatural one. She’s a formidable opponent to anyone who has ever come across her and she takes no prisoners. Cross her once and it’s likely the last thing you do. She’s never been afraid to get her hands dirty, to make the tough choices, even if she’s always had Peter to take care of the things better left to the shadows.

Being Talia Hale’s Left-Hand has always been a position of pride for Peter and in Talia’s management of the pack. Since he was young, he always knew that was his place, and she’s always supported him, has always been the rock at his side.

Things had changed when Chris was left for dead over six years ago, they had to because of the change in Peter’s eyes, but Peter never imagined things would be like they are now. Even now, only the pack knows the details, they’re family, of course, they would be privy to that information, but it’s been harder to hide the growing strain between Talia and himself in the last few months.

Chris makes it better, soothes it to something more manageable, but Peter can't expect him to be glued to Peter’s hip twenty-four seven.

Yes, Peter’s been expecting this, it’s time, but it doesn’t stop the ache in his chest from growing.

“You need a pack, Peter. I think it’s past time now, the Mate bond between you and Chris has kept this need at bay but we both knew it wouldn’t last forever.” Talia tells him softly.

Peter can’t even look her in the eyes as she speaks. He’s nodding his head in agreement even if his heart feels like it’s breaking.

“I think I have a plan that’ll work, if you’re willing.” Talia continues.

Peter is subdued, “Sure, it’s not like I can refuse at this point, will you let me stay at least to help you with the feral alpha?”

“Stay?” Talia asks, confused. “Of course you can stay, Peter. Whatever are you talking about?”

Peter continues like he didn’t hear the question, “I’ll need my own territory, I assumed you had some locations picked out?”

Talia is at a bit of a loss but says, “well yes of course, but we can deal with that later. Right now you need a pack, and this feral alpha having already attacked and bitten two teenagers gives us a unique opportunity”

Peter’s brain is finally starting to catch up and process Talia’s words, “what?!”

Talia smiles, shaking her head at her little brother. “Look, there’s something up with both the Whittemore boy and Martin girl, they were both attacked and bitten, but neither shows signs of turning. But they don’t smell fully human anymore. I don’t know what they are or what’s happened but they’ll need to be brought in, and what better place for them than in _your_ pack.”

Peter is incredulous, “you want me to have a pack with two _children_?”

Talia sighs, “Oh please, Peter, they’re hardly children. Teens yes, but they are on the cusp of adulthood, surely you remember that age, it wasn’t that long ago after all. I doubt you would have liked to be referred to as a child then.”

Peter scoffs, but it’s true, she’s right and he would have _hated_ being referred to as a child. It doesn't mean he likes the idea of being saddled with _teenagers_ as brand new pack mates. Why can't he just live his life with only Chris? As he looks down and sees his claws have emerged unbidden the answer is clear.

Peter relents, “Fine, so you want me to build a pack, and in doing so take these two as pack mates?”

“Well, yes, to start.” Talia won't meet his eyes, looking away.

Peter prods her further, knows that she has an end goal in mind, and wishing she’d stop beating around the bush about it. “To start?”

Talia brings her head up, gaze straight on and powerful, every bit the alpha she truly is, “Derek has been looking at his classmates and he thinks he has three others that might make suitable candidates, three that could benefit from an improvement in their situations.”

Now she’s getting to the heart of it, but Peter’s not sure he likes the direction this is going in. “Derek? You’ve had my nephew scouting out potential people for me to give the bite to? You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s sixteen.”

First, it’s two teens and now it's sounding like a whole lot more than that. Peter didn’t want to sign up to be anyone’s damn parent, there’s a reason he and Chris haven't broached the topic of children.

Talia rallies, “True, he’s young, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and after his failed relationship with Paige he’s learned to read people better. He’s got good instincts, he just has to trust them more. I’ve vetted the three he’s looked at and they’d make good ‘wolves Peter. Hell, I have half a mind to just outright adopt the Lahey boy myself.”

Peter sneers, overwhelmed and agitated, “Then why don’t you.”

“Don’t be like that,” Talia admonishes, “I just mean he has a rough home life. I’m fairly sure you and Chris could convince him to report his father and then work on emancipating him. I know that’s not out of your realm of legal knowledge.”

Peter doesn’t want to preen at that but he does. If ‘rough home life’ translates the way he thinks then the father is a child abuser and with a sympathetic deputy and the right judge it would be nothing for Peter to see it done and the boy free from his father’s grasp. The cherry on top would be to see the man in prison, but that would ultimately be on the Sheriff’s department for building their case.

Peter replies, “No, it’d be easy enough to do. But he’d have to do it before accepting the bite, otherwise, there’s no physical evidence.”

Talia claps her hands together in the way she so often does when she deems a conversation finished, “so it’s settled then?”

Peter chuckles, only slightly bitterly, “Hardly. I need to meet them, talk to them, get a sense of them, and I’m still not convinced that biting teens is the way to go about this. I could reach out to other packs, see if any betas want to deflect.”

Talia shakes her head, “but you know that opens us up to questions about you becoming an alpha.”

Now Peter is confused, “well yes, of course, as would biting kids.”

Talia smiles, sly and secretive, like she’s been waiting until now to lay her cards out, “see, _you_ wouldn’t be, at least we wouldn’t report it like that. We know the alpha has been biting indiscriminately, we can claim that the alpha attacked these three as well and that we are just taking them in, teaching them control.”

It would be a good idea, Peter thinks, but, “yes but you forget that we aren’t _allowed_ to have any more pack members. The council would never agree and they’d be shipped off, away from everything they’ve ever known.”

The smile on Talia’s face grows, “so we don’t put them in the pack.”

Peter scoffs, “well where in the hell are you planning on putting them?”

And there it is, Talia’s royal flush, “I think it’s time the Hale Pack got a Harem.”

And Peter was stunned because it was _brilliant_. They could have additional members and keep them under pack protection by claiming them as concubines in their Harem. It was a loophole that Peter was delighted his sister had seen. He would have figured out his own way to it as well, of course, given just a bit of time, but she had come over with this plan fully formed.

All that was left to do was to see if Peter could poke any holes in it. Because if he couldn’t? Well, then neither would the council be able to.

So they sat and discussed. Peter was relieved and excited and felt that maybe, soon, he could finally have his own pack as his instincts had been driving him towards since the second his eyes flared crimson and he bit Chris to save his life.

* * *

\--- THE END ---


End file.
